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PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY IN IRELAND. 



A LETTER 



TO 



THOMAS MOORE, ESQ. 



EXHIBITING HIS MISSTATEMENTS IN niS HISTORY, RESPECTING THE 

INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY INTO IRELAND, AND THE 

RELIGIOUS TENETS OF THE EARLY IRISH CHRISTIANS, 



FROM 

HENRY J. MONCK* MASON, LL.D. 



DUBLIN. 
WILLIAM CURRY, JUN. AND COMPANY. 

SL.MPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO. LONDON. 

1836. 






Dublin: Printed by J. S* Folds, 5 9 Bachelor^ Walks 



It is intended to print a Third Edition of the Tract called 
« TJie Old Religion of St. Patrick and St. ColumbkiUe" 
written by Mr. Mason, but much altered and corrected by him ; 
and to assist in its gratuitous circulation, by any profits which 
may accrue from the sale of this icork. 



LETTER 



TO 



THOMAS MOORE, ESQ. 



My dear Sir, 

You will perceive in the signature subscribed to 
this letter the name of an old acquaintance. The 
recollection of the character of the society in which 
our intercourse occurred would induce me to avoid 
any inimical or discordant conflict with you; while 
my utter dislike to that mode of contest which has, 
of late years, been too frequently adopted, and even 
on theological subjects, would influence me to shun 
controversy altogether : nevertheless, I feel myself 
obliged by the great motive of truth to declare, that 
many of the assertions contained in your first volume 
of the History of Ireland are not founded in facts; 
and I am compelled, by the vast influence of those 
assertions upon the best interests of my fellow-coun- 
trymen — their eternal interests in connexion with 
religion — to declare it faithfully, solemnly, and pub- 
licly. I shall, therefore, without further preface, 
endeavour to prove the two following allegations : — 

B 



First, That the account which you have given of 
the first introduction of Christianity lostd Ireland is 
erroneous : 

Secondly, That the opinion you have advocated, 
of the doctrines inculcated by the first missionaries, 
teachers, and saints in that country, is, with scarcely 
a single exception, mistaken. 

The question between us is, my dear sir, one of the 
very highest importance, and not by any means one 
of merely antiquarian research : it is, both directly 
and indirectly, of great magnitude in its influences — 
directly, as it is that of religion in Ireland ; indirectly, 
because that the name of religion is, in that country, 
unhappily interwoven with every political question, 
and with almost every circumstance of the present 
day. You are perfectly well aware that authority 
possesses a powerful sway over the minds of the 
people of Ireland ; despotic, when religion is the 
occasion upon which it is exercised; irresistible, when, 
robed in the revered vestments of antiquity, it speaks 
her mandates ; and you have described this trait of 
national character with equal eloquence and truth, 
where, in your History, (p. 203) you advert to " that 
" ready pliancy, that facility, in yielding to new im- 
" pulses and influences, which, in the Irish character, 
" is so remarkably combined with a fond adherence 
" to old usages and customs, and with that sort of 
" retrospective imagination which for ever yearns 
" after the past." When, therefore, authority upon a 
religious question comes dressed in that venerated 
robe, adjusted with a skill so successful as yours, it 



is to be expected that it will operate with an enchant- 
ment, w\t ^ Btothing but the touch of Ithuriel's spear 
can possibly dispel — a fascination, against which no elo- 
quence but that of unpretending truth can at all prevail. 

The first point at issue between us, which is the 
correctness of the account that you have given of 
the first introduction of Christianity into Ireland, I 
shall discuss with you but briefly ; and this for two 
reasons — first, because that we have less of informa- 
tion on that question; secondly, because the fact 
is of itself less important to establish — it matters now 
but little, comparatively, who were the first Christian 
missionaries among the Irish, or whence they came ; 
and the material point for us to determine is, the 
character of the doctrines which they inculcated. 

At the very entrance of this argument there is 
obviously imposed upon me a considerable difficulty — 
you have no where, I believe, asserted, and there- 
fore I can scarcely assume it as laid down by you, 
that St. Patrick was the very first person who intro- 
duced Christianity into Ireland; while every where 
you have laboured to produce the impression on the 
mind that such was the fact. You speak of M the 
" great epoch of the conversion of the Irish by St. 
" Patrick" (p. 106); of the time when he "introduced 
"among them the Christian doctrine" (307); you 
enter upon the subject of religion with an allusion 
to the " original link formed with Rome, from her 
" having appointed the first Irish missionaries" (237) ; 
and, in relating the failure of Palladius in his mission, 
you say, (210) "he was forced to fly from the 



" country, leaving behind him no other memorial of 
" his labours than the adage, traditional among the 
" Irish, that not to Palladius but to Patrick did God 
" grant the conversion of Ireland" — a sentence which 
fixes this latter to be the original link to which you 
allude. It is indeed impossible to rise from the 
perusal of your work without having the impression 
made upon the mind, that you exhibit this eminent 
person as indeed " the first Irish missionary;" and 
many will be surprised at my thus wasting time in 
endeavouring to prove such to have been your object; 
while in fact you do not say so, but directly and 
explicitly the reverse ; and indeed had you so asserted, 
you would not have stated the truth. 

The first witness whom I shall produce to prove 
that St. Patrick was not the first Irish missionary 
is, therefore, your own self; and I shall, as is but 
just, present your own testimony, and in your own 
words; where, in giving the account of his great 
successes in Connaught, (p. 221,) you observe thus — 
" It is supposed that to these western regions of 
" Ireland the saint alludes, in his confession, where 
" he stated that he had visited remote districts where 
" no missionary had been before ; — an assertion im- 
u portant, as plainly implying that, in the more 
" accessible parts of the country, Christianity had, 
ki before his time, been preached and practised. 9 ' 

The evidence of St. Patrick himself is, in the next 
place — and you allow it — decidedly in my favour : his 
words in the original are these — " Ubique pergebam 
causa vestra, etiam usque ad exteras partes, ubi 



u nunquam aliquis pervenerat qui baptizaret, aut cle- 
" ricos ordinaret, aut populum consummaret" — "I went 
" every where to promote your cause, even to remote 
" districts where no one had ever arrived who could 
" baptize, or ordain clergy, or complete" (perhaps 
confirm) " the people" — a testimony which appears to 
be stronger than that which is conveyed in your extract. 

Upon the evidence of two witnesses such as these 
I might be contented to rest my case. The first, you 
at least must allow to be unimpeachable ; and against 
the second you cannot object, as it is given upon 
authority and documents which you yourself have 
produced and relied on : but I have many more 
witnesses in reserve, and some of them whose credit 
shall also be confirmed by your introduction and 
approval. 

In your account of the first efforts of Pope Celestine 
to relieve " the wants of the Irish, and to appoint 
" a bishop for the superintendence of their infant 
" church," (p. 209,) you relate, that " the person 
" chosen for this mission to the Scots believing in 
" Christ, (for so it is specified by the chronicler,*) 
"was Palladius, a deacon of the Roman church".... 
" and, whatever preachers of the faith, foreign or 
" native, might have appeared previously in Ireland, 
" it seems certain that, before this period, no 

* Prosper Chron. Bass, et Antioch. Coss. It is scareely 
necessary to state, and quite unnecessary to prove, that, by the 
ScotSj the inhabitants of Ireland were, at that time, exclusively 
meant. It is not only a truth relied on throughout your work, 
but one that is denied by no one of any authority that has 
examined the subject. Us. Prim, p, 734. 



" hierarchy had been there instituted ; but that in 
" Palladius the Irish Christians saw their first bishop." 
Now, as this mission is confessedly " to the Scots* 
believing in Christ" it is manifest that there were 
Christians in Ireland before it took place ; and this 
is an admission very fully implied by you in this 
passage. 

I proceed dow to a circumstance connected with 
this last ; and, although it is not mentioned in your 
History, yet I feel myself particularly bound in 
candour to bring it forward ; because that, while it 
shows what was really meant by the chronicler in 
calling Palladius the first bishop of the Irish, and 
proves also the existence of the Christian religion 
at an earlier period than that of St. Patrick's arrival, 
it gives some colour (although but a colour) to the 
idea of the original link with Rome. You know 
well, and I think you should have mentioned it for 
the consideration of others, that, in the opinion of 
Usher, Lloyd, and many writers, the terms Primus 
Episcopus, used by Prosper, do not signify "first 
bishop" in point of time, but Primate in point of 
dignity.-]- There is an account, which neither Usher 
or Lloyd felt themselves authorized to reject, that, 
about the year 400, Kiaranus, Ailbeus, Declanus, 
and Ibarus, all of them saints of the Irish nation, 

* The Abbe IYPGeoghegan also draws this conclusion in his 
History, p. 231. 

f Usher's Primordial, p. 800-99, and Lloyd, Bishop of 
St. Asaph, of Ant. Church Government, p. 84. It should 
also be mentioned, that the word Primus does not appear in 
the best copies of Prosper's Chronicle. Us. Prim. p. 799. 



were sent as it is said from Rome, where they had 
for some time dwelt, and where they were ordained 
bishops, into Ireland; that in this island they made 
many conversions; and founded the sees of Ossory, 
Ardmore, Emly, and Beckerin, (Beg-Erin, or 
little Erin in Wexford). This was thirty-one years 
before the alleged period of St. Patrick's mission ; 
and it was over them that Palladius was, as it is 
conjectured, appointed Primate, or first bishop, by the 
Pope.* 

I do not, however, dwell upon this account, espe- 
cially as it is clear that you do not believe it to 
be according to the truth ; for, in p. 227, you state 
Ailbe, Declan, and Ibar to have been " all disciples 
of St. Patrick ;" in which I entirely agree, for it 
is quite impossible to reconcile the story of their 
being active missionaries, and the founders of sees 
in the year 400, with the record of their respective 
deaths. I have consulted the Ulster Annals, and 
find them to place that of Ibar in a>d. 500, and 
that of Ailbe in 533 ; and the historians of Declan 
and Kiaran are said to have fixed theirs at about 
a.d. 530. (Pat. opusc. note, p. 106.) M'Geoghegan 
states the birth of St. Kieran a.d. 352, and his death 
a.d. 549. (p. 161 and 163.) I did not think right, 
however, to pass by this account unnoticed ; if true, it 
would tend to prove my side of the present argument, 
although it would assist you in your original link; but, 
being manifestly fabricated, and so very generally 

* Usher Prim. p. 789, and Lloyd, p. 51* 



8 

considered to be, it shews how soon the Roman 
hagiographers, and other writers, were occupied in their 
fictions respecting the origin of the Christian faith in 
Ireland. 

I return to your own admissions, and draw from 
them a fifth head of proof. You have given us 
Pelagius and Celestius, who propagated their false 
opinions about the year of our Lord 400 ; you in- 
troduce them to our notice thus (p. 206) — " But, 
" though unfurnished with any direct evidence as 
tc to the religious state of the Irish in their own 
" country, we have a proof how early they began 
" to distinguish themselves on the continent, as 
" Christian writers and scholars, in the persons of 
" Pelagius, the eminent heresiarch, and his able 
" disciple Celestius." And you tell us (p. 209) that 
it was the account given by St. German and Lupus 
*' of the increasing number of Christians" in Ireland, 
" as well as of the inroads already made upon them 
" by the Pelagian doctrines, that induced Pope 
" Celestine to turn his attention to the wants of the 
" Irish," and to send them Palladius, as already men- 
tioned, to their " infant church." Now I must dwell 
somewhat more at length upon this subject, as one 
that is most important, when I have first applied this 
admission to our present argument. We here have 
acknowledged an " infant church," an " increasing 
number of Christians," time even for heresies to 
spring up, and "Christian writers arid scholars," so 
educated at home as to be enabled to " distinguish 
" themselves on the continent," some time before St. 



Patrick is said to have first preached the gospel in 
this land. Indeed, you present to us this argument 
yourself, where, in speaking of Celestius, who was 
doubtless our countryman, you inform us that, " while 
" yet a youth, and before he had adopted the Pelagian 
" doctrines," he, from the monastery of St. Martin of 
Tours, and " a.d. 369, addressed to his parents in 
" Ireland three letters, in the form, as we are told, 
" of little books, and full of such piety," as Genna- 
dius expresses it, " as to make them necessary to all 
" who love God." (p. 207-8.) These letters, thus 
written in the year 369, preceded the arrival of 
St. Patrick by 62 years ; and I cannot avoid remarking 
that, if your following observation be just, as it must 
be allowed to be, that " the fact of Celestius thus 
" sending letters to Ireland, with an implied per- 
" suasion that they would be read, affords one of 
" those incidental proofs of the art of writing being 
" then known to the Irish, which, combining with 
" other evidence more direct, can leave but little 
" upon the subject ;" we may reason in a manner 
precisely similar, that they equally prove that their 
subject matter, Christianity, was not unknown to those 
to whom they were written ; and that the fact itself 
" affords one of those incidental proofs" in favour of 
" my argument, which, combining with other evidence 
" more direct, can leave but little doubt upon the 
" subject." 

While making these acknowledgments here, you 
have, nevertheless, sought to promote the great object 
of your argument, which is to prove, that the orthodox 



10 

faith of the ancient Irish church was received from 
Rome, and agrees with her modern tenets ; and have 
taken the opportunity of connecting a pestilent and 
devastating heresy with the doctrines that were first 
taught in Ireland, independently of that see, when 
you allege this island to be the place of the birth and 
early Christian education of the great Heresiarch 
Pelagius.* But the authorities upon which you rest 
your conclusion that he was a monk of Bangor, or 
Banchor, near Carrickfergus, and not of Bangor in 
Wales, are altogether insufficient to support it; and 
very far too weak to form a ground for an insinua- 
tion so important as that just alluded to. You admit 
that it is in general asserted that he was a "Briton ;" 
(p. 206, ) and he is certainly so denominated by the 
venerable Bede, (Eccl. Hist. lib. 1, c. 10;) and by 
Prosper, in his Chronicle, who notices him thus — 
" Pelagius Brito Dei gratiam impugnat." But that 
which places the matter beyond a doubt, as to his not 
having been a monk of the Irish Bangor, is the fact, 
that that monastery was not in existence until a 
long time after his death. Dr. O'Connor, on whose 
authority you so often rely, informs us that it was 
founded by St. Comgal, a.d. 559. If you doubt 
him, look to the Ulster Annals, a.d. 518, where 



* By the way, if Pelagius be connected at all with Irish 
doctrines, it must be especially allowed to have been through 
the countenance given to him by St. Patrick's successors, whose 
New Testament, the famed Book of Armagh, contains the 
arguments of Pelagius, or his prologues, to almost all the 
Epistles. (Betham's Antiq. Res. p. 261, &c.) 



11 

it is recorded thus — " Comgallus, primus abbas 
Bangorensis, in Hibernia natus." See also ad annos. 
601 and 602. 

We have now, by testimonies derived from your 
own admissions, brought up the introduction of Chris- 
tianity into Ireland, to a period preceding the year 
of our Lord, 369. I shall, in the next place, inquire 
of you, upon what principles of evidence do you put 
aside the testimony of Tertullian, a writer of unques- 
tionable authority as to facts, and whom you have 
elsewhere relied on ? (p. 238.) He wrote about the 
year 201 ; and, alluding to the progress of the Gospel, 
he affirms thus — " Britannorum inaccessa Romanis 
loca, Christo vero subdita." (p. 206.) This important 
sentence you present with the following neutralizing 
comment : — " To what extent Christianity had spread 
" in Ireland before the mission of St. Patrick, there 
" are no very accurate means of judging. The boast" 
— (why should it be called the boast ?) — "of Tertul- 
" lian, that in his time a knowledge of the Christian 
u faith had reached those parts of the British isles, 
" yet unapproached by the Romans, is supposed to 
" imply as well Ireland as the northern regions of 
" Britain" — and doubtless it must include Ireland, or 
there would be no meaning in the plural Britanno- 
rum — " nor are there wanting," you proceed to say, 
" writers who, placing reliance on the assertion of 
" Eusebius, that some of the Apostles preached the 
''Gospel in the British isles, suppose St. James to 
u have been the promulgator of the faith among the 
" Irish." Now, my dear sir, I would not hesitate to 



12 

refer to your own decision, to be made upon calmer 
reflection, whether or not you are perfectly just in thus 
confounding the clear testimony of a direct, impartial, 
and unquestioned authority, such as is Tertullian, 
upon a mere matter of fact, with second-hand and 
wild deductions drawn from general declarations. 
You could not possibly have thought that these two, 
(to wit, original assertion of a fact, and conjectures 
based upon the assertion of a fact,) possessed the same 
character of credibility; and you should not have 
presented them thus coupled together to your readers. 
Permit me, at all events, to enroll this slighted evi- 
dence of an ancient Father among' my proofs, until 
something better than ridicule or contempt be brought 
forward to invalidate it. 

I must now pass on from the re-examination of your 
witnesses, to the production of some new ones of my 
own ; such indeed as you should have, in my opinion, 
taken notice of also. It is surely the duty of an his- 
torian to detail to his reader all the important facts 
connected with his subject, and to withhold nothing 
from him that may bear upon it, although it may not 
favor the peculiar bias of his mind. I think, there- 
fore, you are to blame in that, either when adverting 
to the introduction of Christianity into Ireland, or in 
discussing the question of the dependence of the Irish 
on the Romish church, you have not transcribed into 
your history any part of that which Bede has recorded, 
respecting the arguments used at the celebrated 
Synod of Whitby ; but have contented yourself with 
merely remarking, (p. 282,) " that, after speeches 



13 

" and replies on both sides, of which Bede has pre- 
' ; served the substance, the king and the assembly at 
" large agreed to give their decision in favor of Wil- 
" fred." Permit me to supply the defect. You have 
rightly informed your readers that, in the year 664, 
this synod or council was assembled at Whitby, in 
Yorkshire, for the purpose of discussing, before the 
King Oswin, the question respecting the proper time 
for celebrating the festival of Easter, and some other 
points, in which the ancient Irish differed from the 
Romish church. " The arguments," as you relate, 
(p. 281-2, ) "were temperately and learnedly brought 
"forward by St. Colman," (a monk of the Colum- 
bian order, who had been sent thither to fill 
the high office of bishop,) " with his Irish clergy, 
" speaking in defence of the old observances of the 
" country ; while Wilfred, a learned priest, who had 
" been recently to Rome, undertook to prove the 
" truth and universality of the Roman method." In 
his argument, St. Colman made use of the following 
remarkable words : — " This Easter, which I use to 
" observe, I received from my elders, who sent me 
" bishop hither ; which all our fathers, men beloved 
" of God, are known to have celebrated after the 
" same manner. It is the same which the blessed 
« Evangelist St. John, the disciple specially beloved 
" of the Lord, with all the churches that he did 
" oversee, is read to have celebrated." And again : — 
" Can it be believed that such men as our venerable 
" father Columba, and his successors, would have 
" thought or acted things contrary to the precepts 



14 

"of the sacred pages?" — (Bed. Ecc. Hist. Lib. I. 
c. 25.) It is exceedingly remarkable, that neither in 
the passages now quoted, nor in any part of the 
account, is there any mention whatsoever made by the 
Irish clergy of St. Patrick, or of their deference to 
the see of Rome. You assert, in speaking of the 
dispute about the mode of tonsure, which was "mixed 
up throughout with the Paschal question," (p. 283-4,) 
that, " on the part of the Irish, the real motive for 
" clinging so fondly to their old custom was, that it 
" had been introduced among them, with all their' 
" other ecclesiastical rules and usages, by St. Patrick." 
And again: — "When St. Patrick came on his mission 
" to Ireland, he introduced the same method of 
" Paschal computation — which was then* practised at 
" Rome." — (p. 268.) Now, I think it quite suffi- 
cient to refer to the history of this council for a proof 
of your erroneous views upon the subject. What- 
ever may have influenced the minds of the southern 
Irish, ("Gentes Scotorum quae in australibus Hiber- 
" nise insula? partibus morabantur." — Bede Ecc. Hist. 
1. 3, c. 3,) " some of their greatest saints, the monks 
" of the abbey of Hy, and many others among the 
" northern Scots," (as thel Abbe M'Geoghegan ex- 
presses himself,) rejected the proposed innovation ; 
and, in their reasonings upon the subject, drew all 
their arguments of authority and traditions, not from 
St. Patrick or St. Peter, but solely from St. Columb- 

* This method, which was not correct, was afterwards changed 
at Rome ; but adhered to by the original churches of the British 
isles, with somewhat of unreasonable pertinacity. 



kille and St. John. This fact you fully allow in 
your history, p. 273, &c* It follows, therefore, either 
that they derived not these usages from the former 
and the see of Rome ; or that, allowing St. Patrick 
to have also used them, they considered him to be of 
far less account as an authority than St. Columbkille ; 
while they refer to St. John, in a manner which 
proves that they looked upon him as their own and 
" chiefest Apostle." (2 Cor. xi. 5.) I shall return to 
the point, as connected with this important document ; 
and shall only remark here, that many modern writers, 
relying upon the silence of Bede in this place and 
elsewhere respecting St. Patrick, have supposed the 
entire history of his apostleship to be a fable ; but, 
although much of it is composed of, and all of it 
blended with, false legend, I think the great body of 
evidence is in its favor as a general truth ; and I 
would make use of the material fact of the silence of 
Bede on the subject — of such a writer as the venera- 
ble Bede, one of the most accredited historians of 
the Roman Catholic church, and one who composed 

* You appear to be mistaken in your comment on this fact, 
where you say, "to the influence exercised over that part of the 
" kingdom by the successors of St. Columba this perseverance 
" is in a great measure to be attributed." It was not to that alone, 
the successors of this saint were at this time established in the 
island of Hy, over which they doubtless had great authority, and 
which was the last place that acquiesced in the Roman method : 
but it was in the north of Ireland, if any where, that the influence 
of the successors of St. Patrick also especially prevailed ; it was 
there they had then their apostolic city ; and the north was the 
portion of the country in which St. Patrick chiefly laboured 
and lived, in which he spent his last most influential days, and 
where he died. The prejudice of the northerns is, therefore. 
to be traced up higher. 



16 

his history within sixty-seven years of the transac- 
tion recorded — rather for the purpose of correcting 
your monopolizing enthusiasm, and that of others, 
respecting your favorite saint, than for an occasion of 
running into the opposite and sceptical system.* 

But I have another reason for objecting to your 
having withheld this history from the consideration of 
your readers ; you could scarcely have been ignorant 
how it has induced several persons to join in the 
opinion, not only that some of the peculiarities of 
the Irish church, such as its mode of celebrating 
Easter, and of tonsure, its offices, and its monastic 



* I am quite aware of the hypotheses respecting St. Patrick, 
put forth principally by Sir W. Betham, in his account of the 
Book of Armagh, (Irish Antiq. Res. p. 243.) He supposes 
a Patrick to have been the first Apostle of Ireland, at a very 
early period; (pages 287 and 315;) that there was a second of 
the name, and that he, " or the Roman Patrick and Palladius 
" were the same person ;" that " the Pope saw the advantage 
"of giving a name to this missionary, which was cherished 
"and venerated by the people to whom he was sent;" but 
that " Palladius, or any of his immediate successors, never 
"bore the name of Patrick, while they lived." — u This name 
" was given them in the seventh century," for the purpose 
aforesaid. One great foundation of this system is the silence 
of Bede; but, without at all entering into a discussion 
respecting it — which is unnecessary here, because Sir William 
and I both agree in our opinion of an early mission ; and 
both of us reject much that is claimed for the Patrick of 451, 
upon the evidence of this silence. — I cannot but remark, that 
if it proves any thing, it shews that, at no period previous to 
the Synod of Whitby did any person exist, bearing the name 
of Patrick, and possessing such an extravagant degree of vene- 
ration in the minds of the Irish Christians, as is now supposed 
to tave been connected with this cherished name; for if there 
had been such, his authority would surely have been adduced 
at the synod, as well as that of St. Columbkille and his suc- 
cessors. 



17 

rules, but that even Christianity itself, were introduced 
by Christian Missionaries taught by St. Irenseus 
bishop of Lyons, the pupil of Polycarp of Smyrna, 
who received them from St. Ignatius, the immediate 
disciple of St. John — the truth of this tradition is 
somewhat confirmed by the above mentioned argu- 
ment of St. Col man, more especially as it appears in 
the life of Wilfred, by two of his biographers. One 
of these relates, that St. Colman said thus : " We with 
" the same confidence celebrate the same, as his dis- 
" ciples Polycarpus and others did ; neither dare we, 
" for our parts, neither will we change this." The 
other, Fridegodus, comes still closer to the point in 
these lines, describing the words of Colman — 

" Nos seriem patriam, non frivola scripta tenemus ; 
" Discipulo Eusebii Polycarpo dante Johannis," &c. 

" We hold by our country's course," or usage, — and 
not "frivolous writings — such as was given by Polycarp 
" the disciple of St. John." (See Us. Rel. of Ant. 
Ir. p. 103. Ed. 1631.) It will be allowed that all 
this savours much in itself of an introduction of 
Christianity into Ireland through these holy men, 
while it leads me to another presumptive proof of 
the fact. 

In page 297 you write thus : — " One of the chief 
" arguments, indeed, employed by Ledwich, in his 
" attempt to show that the early church of Ireland 
" was independent of the See of Rome, is founded 
" on those traces of connexion, through Greek 
" and Asiatic missionaries, with the east, which, 



18 

" there is no doubt, are to be found in the records 
" and transactions of that period." The fact of this 
connexion you admit; of its traces you have no 
doubt j and I therefore cannot but advance it as one of 
those "incidental proofs," in favour of my argument, 
which, combining with other evidence more direct, 
and especially coupled with the historical accounts of 
Bede, " can leave but little doubt upon the subject.' ' 
The impression made by it upon your mind seems 
to have been of this character; and, finding it im- 
possible to refute the truth of the assertion, you en- 
deavour thus to parry its force. " Had such instances, 
however," you say, " been numerous enough even 
" to prove more than a casual and occasional inter- 
" course with those regions, it would not have served 
" the purpose this reverend antiquary sought to gain ; 
" as, at the time when Christianity was first introduced 
" into Ireland, the heads of the Greek church were 
"on the best terms with the See of Rome." You 
clearly thus abandon all opposition to the eastern 
connexion, although it is equally clear that you do it 
with no very good grace; and the instances thus 
acknowledged, although they may not serve the 
purpose of Dr. Ledwich, are certainly quite sufficient 
for mine, in the present argument ; which is to shew 
an introduction of Christianity into Ireland, previously 
to the mission of St. Patrick — with this admission I 
am quite contented. Although it is not material to 
the point now under discussion, yet, as it is important 
in its bearings upon the question in general, I shall 
subjoin, in a note, the opinions of St. Irenseus 



19 

respecting the Romish church in the second century; 
which will prove you to be somewhat under a 
mistake in respect to the latter part of your assertion.* 
The history of this connexion is involved in the 
greatest obscurity; but, besides the evidence of the 
glimmerings which, as you assert, undoubtedly prove 
it, you might have given us some stronger lights from 
O'Connor's Prolegomena, than you have afforded us 
through him. He quotes the following passage 
from Gennadius, which, had you coupled with it that 
weaker one respecting Coalestius, that you tell us has 
been " rather unaccountably brought forward," in proof 
of the " early introduction of monastic institutions into 
" Ireland," this learned man would have appeared to 
have had something better to adduce in support of his 
position. Gennadius must have written, according 
to Baronius, before the year 493, and his words are 
as follows (de Scrip, ill. c. 44.) : " Placuit nempe 
" altissimo, ut S. Athanasius, ex JEgypto pulsus ab 
" Arianis, vitam monasticam, usque ad id tempus in 
" occidente ignominiosam ; Scotis, Attacottis, aliis- 
" que barbaris Romanum imperium vastantibus ; S.S. 

* He complains of it thus — " That the schismatics at Rome 
" had corrupted the sincere law of the church, which led to 
" the greatest impieties. These opinions," he adds, "the 
" Presbyters, who lived before our times, who were also dis- 
" ciples of the apostles, did in no wise deliver. I, who saw 
" and heard the blessed Polycarp, am able to protest, in the 
" presence of God, that if that apostolic Presbyter had heard 
"of these things, he would have stopped his ears, and cried 
11 out, according to his custom, ' Good God, for what times 
" * hast thou reserved me, that I should suffer such things !' " — 
Euseb. lib. v. c. 20 ; in Ledwich's Antiquities ? 



20 

" Ambrosio et Martino opem ferentibus ; propalaret, 
" aim. circ. 336." (O'Con. Proleg. L p. 78.) Let 
this passage be translated in what manner it may, it 
affords me an authority for connecting the Scots, or 
Irish, with Christianity, in the year 336. 

It is a curious fact, and one of some importance on 
this head, that the use of the Greek alphabet was 
employed in the writing of the most ancient books 
that we possess in Ireland ; for instance, the book 
of Armagh. Sir W. Betham has presented us with a 
fac simile from it of the Pater Noster, written in Greek 
capitals, (in Antiq. Res. 2d part) ; I had myself par- 
ticularly observed the use of such letters when I exa- 
mined the book ; for instance, in the word Jinitum, in 
the subscription to one of the Gospels, where the Greek 
letter occurs, instead of j\ thus, <pinitum. This 
circumstance is the more extraordinary, as the Irish 
f possesses the full force of ; had the Greek x 
indeed been used instead of ch or the dotted c, which 
are now employed, rather clumsily, (and in an inscrip- 
tion in the Book of Armagh several times,) to express 
the power of that letter, it would not have been so 
remarkable. This circumstance cannot be accounted 
for by the existence of Greek schools in comparatively 
modern times, nor by any hypothesis short of an 
intimate and primitive intercourse between the Irish 
Christians and the Greeks. The following fact must 
not be passed over unnoticed. It is recorded in the 
Greek life of St. Chrysostom, which you will find in 
Savilles edition of his works, (in T. viii. p. 321.) 
that u Ttj/es icXrjpiKoi tG)v wKeavucwv V7\cwv" "certain 



21 

" clergymen, who dwelt in the isles of the ocean," 
repaired from the utmost borders of the habitable 
world to Constantinople, between the years 842 and 
847, when Methudius was Patriarch there, to inquire 
" of certain ecclesiastical traditions, and the perfect 
" and exact computation of Easter." So tenacious 
were these islanders, who were most probably Irish, of 
their traditional customs ; and so lively, even at this 
late period, their veneration for that church, from 
which they confessedly received them. 

In following up this latter argument, a new one pre- 
sents itself, in favor of an early entrance of the Gospel 
into Ireland, from the testimony of St. Chrysostom 
— a Greek father, who wrote about the year 400 ; and 
who, in three several passages of his w r orks, refers to 
the existence of Christianity in the British Isles; 
one of these you have yourself relied on (p. 237, 
note,) as an authority for the ancient reception in 
Ireland of a peculiar Roman Catholic doctrine. In 
his Tract, " Quod Christus sit Deus," written circ. 
A. D. 388, (Ed. Sav. T. vi. p. 635 5 ) he says, as 
thus rendered into Latin, " Britannica? insulae, virtu - 
" tern verbi senserunt ; sunt enim etiam illic fundata 
" ecclesise, et erecta altaria," — " for there also," 
within the British isles, " are churches established, 
" and altars erected." Again, in his 28th sermon on 
the 2d epistle to the Cor. 12. (iii. 696.) " In quam- 
" cunque Ecclesiam ingressus fueris, sive apud Mauros, 
" sive apud ipsas Britannicas insulas, &c." " Into what- 
11 soever church you should enter, whether among the 
" Moors, or in those British isles, &c." The third 



22 

instance I shall enlarge on in another place; it is where 
he says, " although thou shouldst go to the ocean, and 
" those British isles, &c. thou shouldst hear all 
" men, every where, discoursing matters out of the 
" Scriptures." Tom. viii. p. 111. 

I shall briefly allude to some glimmerings of light 
which our native annals, or other documents, have 
cast upon the subject now before us. In writing of 
Cormac, king of Ireland, about the year of our Lord 
254, you mention, (p. 132) that "by some writers it 
" is alleged, that he was converted to Christianity seven 
" years before his death ; being, it is added, the third 
" person in Ireland who professed that faith before the 
" coming of St. Patrick." Allusions are made, in a 
poem supposed to have been written about the year 
220, by Olioll Olura, king of Munster, which de- 
monstrate that the writer was at least acquainted with 
the existence of the Christian religion ; and, for that 
reason, Mr. O'Reilly, the secretary of the Iberno- 
Celtic Society, concludes, but somewhat too hastily, 
in a note to the Transactions of that body, that the 
poem must be of a later date. 

These slight gleamings shew nothing perhaps sepa- 
rately, and indeed they are but individual in- 
stances; but I trust that I have now produced 
abundance of " other evidence more direct," which 
will fully bear me out in my first assertion, " that 
" the account which you have given of the first intro- 
" duction of Christianity into Ireland is erroneous ** 
and that it was not only known, but established 
there, long previously to the year 431. 



23 

There is still a strong matter of presumptive evi- 
dence in reserve, to be collected from the certainty of 
the preaching of the Gospel in Great Britain, long 
before it was visited by St. Austin ; and the great im- 
probability that, while the intercourse between that 
country and Ireland was confessedly quite continual, 
no spring of missionary zeal should have existed, to 
press it into a pagan land within sight even of its 
shores. Whether Tertullian was right or wrong in the 
fact, his expressions, as descriptive of the Evange- 
lical Spirit, is no boast ; and it is almost incredible, 
that its zeal should have lain frozen for centuries on a 
coast but 18 miles distant ; within view of the fire 
tower, and of the burning hecatombs to Moloch ; and 
have left it to an emissary from Rome, in the year 
431, to raise the first outcry against such abomi- 
nations. This is very unlike the history of that 
religion which, even in the lifetime of the first 
Apostle of the Gentiles, was already preached in all 
the Roman world ; and becomes absolutely incredible, 
when we consider the persecutions which, for the first 
three centuries, pressed its preachers continually west- 
ward. The fact — which appears from your own admis- 
sion, and which Bede has distinctly asserted — that, 
before the arrival of Saint Austin, the British and Irish 
churches agreed in several points both of discipline 
and of doctrine, in which they differed diametrically 
from the church of Rome, and to which they obsti- 
nately adhered in contempt of her authority, demon- 
strates still further the truth, of an early mutual 
connexion, under circumstances quite independent of 
the interference of that See. 



24 

I shall now proceed to demonstrate, in the second 
place, that the opinion you have advocated of the 
doctrines inculcated by the first missionaries, saints, 
and teachers in that country is, with scarcely a single 
exception, mistaken. 

I shall in this part of our discussion be much more 
diffuse ; for, as has already been stated, it is a matter 
of very little comparative importance whether it was 
from Rome or from Greece, from the disciples of St. 
Peter or St. John, that Ireland received the first 
truths of the gospel, if it appear that its primitive 
saints, and among them the acknowledged mission- 
aries of Rome, " on most of the leading points of 
" Christian doctrine, professed the opinions at present 
" entertained by Protestants." This is the allegation 
of Archbishop Usher, of which you declare that 
*' rarely has there been hazarded an assertion so little 
" grounded on fact." (p. 237.) Now, sir, in taking 
up the gauntlet for this wise and learned man, " the 
" admirable Usher," as you justly style him, I shall 
endeavour to prove these observations of yours to be 
peculiarly applicable to your own argument ; and, 
selecting the period of nearly two centuries from the 
alleged arrival of St. Patrick in Ireland, or from the 
year 431 to a.d. 600,* I shall shew that, within that 

* The year 600 is a most proper period to fix on, as it was 
about this time that St. Austin was sent on his mission to the 
English by Pope Gregory the First, and submission to the see 
of Rome was especially and urgently claimed from the British 
Christians. But it is particularly suitable upon another and a 
national account, which I shall explain from Usher's Primordia, 
913, as quoted and relied on by the Abbe M'Geoghegan, (Hist. 



To 

time, none of the particular tenets of the church of 
Rome that are mentioned in your book, and against 
which the reformed church at present protests, were 
holden by the early Irish Christians. In doing so, I 
shall transcribe all that you have put forth in text or 
note, in your short four pages, upon each separate 
head, in order that I may do the greater justice to 
your argument. I shall then rfffute the substance, in 
the order in which you have advanced it ; and still 
further endeavour, if possible, to fix the date of the 
entrance of each particular doctrine into the creed of 
the Irish Roman Catholic church ; and to demonstrate, 
that they are all of them condemned by or contrary 
to the Scriptures, and therefore could none of them 

D'Irlande, v. 1, p. 321). " Usserius," he says, u apres un 
"ancient MS. autentique, distingue trois differentes classes de 
"saints dans l'lrlande, qui correspondent aut cinquieme et 
<v sixieme siecles. " These differed from the rest of Christendom 
in their liturgy, &c. mass, modes of tonsure, and time of cele- 
brating Easter; and of them it is quaintly said — " Primus ordo 
" sanctissimus, secundus ordo sanctior, tertius sanctus ; primus 
" sicut sol ardescit, secundus sicut luna, tertius sicut 
" stellae," &c. " the first order was most holy, the second 
" holier, the third holy ; the first glows as the sun, the second 
4 as the moon, the third as the stars." The first continued from 
St. Patrick, a.d. 451, during four reigns, to a.d. 515, or, as you 
make it, a.d. 542 ; the second during four more, to a.d. 558 ; 
the third for other four, to about the year 600. I will there- 
fore extend my period of pure doctrine to that date ; al- 
though, upon the authority of this very document, approved of 
by M'Geoghegan, and acquiesced in to some extent by your- 
self, (p. 241.) I might have perhaps more properly limited it 
to a.d. 542, or at the latest 558. It must not be omitted 
that it affords, at the very setting out, decided proofs of a rapid 
degeneracy in the Irish church ; I refer the reader to the ori- 
ginal, in order that he may see this fully exhibited. 



26 

have been maintained by the very primitive teachers 
of Christianity, the apostles and evangelists. They 
are like the rust that covered the shield of Scriblerus, 
which, although it could not have been so antiquated 
as that which it encrusted, yet gave to it, in the eyes 
of many an antiquarian, its only value; while common 
sense could not but discover that, while it proved its 
antiquity, it was only by presenting the melancholy 
proofs of corruption. 

But, previously to entering upon the argument, I 
feel it to be quite necessary to make some prefatory 
observations, respecting the manner in which you have 
treated the subject, and the grounds upon which your 
opinions are founded — the documents to which you 
refer, and on which you rely. 

With respect to the first, it is essential to point it out, 
lest your reader should be deluded into false impres- 
sions, through the effect of your apparent indifference to 
the importance of the subject. Is a question which 
deeply influences the prejudices of our destitute and 
ignorant people, in regard to their best interests in this 
world, and their entire concerns in an eternal one, deser- 
ving of serious consideration, or not? If it be, why have 
you so much neglected the proper duty of an historian, 
as to give it so very small a proportion of yours ? 
Again — is all " the learning of the admirable Usher" 
worthy of only four pages' notice in your book, toge- 
ther with this small meed of extorted praise ? Or is 
the subject beneath the dignity of history to descend 
to ? Are your facts so manifest, so indisputable, so 
conceded, that they need only to be stated that they 



27 

may be received ? or are your arguments so over- 
whelming, or your own authority so preponderating, 
that conviction and concession must necessarily follow 
in your wake ? I confess that it does not strike me 
so ; on the contrary, your conduct as an historian 
does appear to be most reprehensible, whether it be 
viewed with reference to the manner in which you 
have exhibited and disposed of the reasoning of others, 
or attempted, ex cathedra, to impose your own opinion 
upon the public ; and I perceive much in it of that 
modern method of brushing away all that is venerable, 
with bustling and bold assertion ; of throwing into a 
lumber corner, sober history, as an obselete ephemeris; 
and of establishing preconceived system upon the light 
proof of unsifted report : this, my dear sir, may very 
well answer a political and momentary purpose, but 
can never assist in accomplishing a literary or durable 
object. 

With respect to the documents which you refer to, 
I object, in the first place, to your manner of quoting 
them. It is necessary, in my own defence, to state, 
that in this you greatly embarrass those who dissent 
from you ; and too often, like the ink-fish, compel 
them to contend with you in darkened waters. For 
instance, you make no special reference to the writings 
where Rome is styled, the " Head of Cities." — 
(I select this only for example) — you do not refer 
to the books, or pages of books, where we shall find 
your ancient canons, and other proofs; nor to that 
part of the lives of St. Brendan, St. Bridget, or of 
other works, from which you have borrowed certain 



28 

passages. This, besides giving your opponent some 
trouble, and putting difficulties in his way, which in 
this case I trust I have surmounted, compels him to the 
proof of a negative ; and, unless he have perused all 
the authors to which you allude, and made the fullest 
possible research — in one place among the eight folio 
volumes of Chrysostom's difficult Greek — he never can 
with confidence either deny your conclusions, or answer 
them ; or be assured that they are those precisely to 
which you meant to advert. This is obviously a great 
disadvantage to me, and a very unforensic mode of 
arguing on your part ; and I feel myself compelled to 
add, that many of your quotations bear with them 
internal evidence, that you have frequently taken 
them at second hand, and without consulting the 
original documents referred to. 

I object also very much to the authorities upon 
which you do rely ; you have endeavoured to fix a 
false credit upon certain which are of little or no 
value ; and have, as we have already seen, attempted 
to cast others of the first stamp entirely into the 
shade, or to disparage them altogether. Thus it is 
that while, with very inadequate salvos (p. 233, 236), 
you have set forward with too high a character, and 
amply quoted, ; the dark biography of your bigoted 
monks, or the twilight glimmerings of our more 
enlightened annalists, you have often entirely ex- 
cluded, or very cautiously admitted, the light that 
beamed from the collected learning of Usher, or 
that would illustrate the subject from the dim but 
steady lamp of the venerable Bede. You have 



29 

embodied into history many of the vague accounts 
given of your hero St. Patrick, so as, with consum- 
mate ingenuity, to present us with a picture only short 
of the miraculous,* but well set off with the marvel- 
lous, and adorned with " circumstances," as you 
express it, (p. 218) " full of what may be called the 
poesy of real life;" while you have disembodied 
from history many of the dull prose facts of the 
most intelligent, and most accredited, of the early 
writers of the Roman Catholic Church in these 
islands. 

But I shall, notwithstanding, take up the gauntlet 
that you have thrown down ; and shall even contend 
against you with none but Roman Catholic writers or 
authorities, and not state a fact singly from any 
Protestant witness whom you have not yourself 
produced. With respect to St. Patrick and his 
works, it is necessary still further to remark, that I 
have considered the arguments on both sides, con- 
tending for and denying the existence of this saint, 
in his character of apostle of Ireland, and have 
inquired into the genuineness of his Opuscula ; and I 
think the weight of argument to be in favour of the 

* I am more pleased with the open avowal of M'Geo- 
ghegan, and other Roman Catholic writers, of the miracles 
wrought by St. Patrick, rejecting indeed the absurdity 
of modern legends — the words of the Abbe are as follows 
(Hist. D. Irlande, v. i. p. 257) — " Cependant on ne doit pas 
'* douterqu'il n'en ai fait plusieurs bien veritables. II a fallu 
" que Dieului ait donne ce pou voir, poup convertir un peuple 
" idolatre." I shall make some observations on this point, to- 
wards the end of this letter. 



30 

affirmative side, so far as to establish him as a great 
and holy man, the chief, but not the first missionary 
to this island ; to stamp his letter to Coroticus, 
and his confession, as " authentic writings from his 
"hand;" and to give credit to the canons of such of 
his synods as you refer to as authentic also. (p. 223.) 
Among other reasons for my agreeing with you in 
thinking that these are genuine, are, the great purity 
of the Christian doctrine that pervades them, the holy 
breath of prayer that forms the atmosphere of the 
confession, and the frequent reference to the sole 
authority of scripture, that is to be found in them all. 
It is also said that the version of the Bible thus so 
often appealed to is peculiar, and common to the 
copies that have been found in Ireland ; it is in Latin, 
and differs somewhat from that of Jerome, agreeing 
rather with the rendering of the Greek * Septuagint, 

* I am inclined to think that all the pieces contained in the 
small book of Opuscula of St. Patrick, edited by Ware, 
A. D. 1656, and attributed to him, are genuine; excepting 
only that self-evident forgery of after-times, his charter to 
the monastery of Glastonbury. It is clear that you agree 
with me in rejecting this, as you do not quote or refer to it, 
although it is the only work of the Saint that in any way makes 
for your argument ; and we both rely also on his own " written 
*' testimony, which proves him constantly to have remained hi 
" Ireland from the time he commenced his mission to the last 
" day of his life" ( p. 225) ; a fact in which 1 entirely concur, 
and which is quite inconsistent with the false story connected 
with the charter alluded to, which is said to have been made 
to the Abbey of Glastonbury, after that St. Patrick had retired 
thither, to spend in it his latter days. The origin of the 
mistake appears to me to have been this, that St. Patrick had 
a disciple, whom Jocelin calls his God-son, and who took his 
name ; this person is said to have retired to the Abbey of 
Glastonbury, and died there, — (See Mac Geoghegan's Hist.) 



31 

than with it, in places where these versions differ from 
each other. 

The first tenet you mention is perhaps the most 
material of any, although it is not a point of doctrine, 
because it is connected with the great authority which 
influences all. — You introduce it thus : " We find in 
" a canon of one of the earliest synods held in Ireland, 
" a clear acknowledgment of the supremacy of the 
" Roman See. Nor was this recognition confined 
" merely to words ; as, on the very first serious 
" occasion of controversy which presented itself, the 
" dispute relative to the time of celebrating Easter, it 
" was resolved, conformably to the words of this canon, 
" that the question should be referred to the Head of 
" Cities ; and, a deputation being accordingly des- 
" patched to Rome for the purpose, the Roman 
" practice on this point was ascertained and adopted." 
Now that a certain degree of honour, but very far 
indeed short of supremacy, was given to the See of 
Rome, and was in some manner acknowledged by the 
church that was promoted by St. Patrick in Ireland, 
cannot be doubted ; and it necessarily followed from 
the connexion which is allowed to have been formed 
with it by that saint — so far you have truth on your 
side — but, on this small stock you had no right to 
graft the allegations with which the above sentence 
abounds. In refutation of them I am prepared to 
shew, first, that there is no genuine canon of an 
ancient Irish synod, acknowledging the supremacy of 
Rome ; and none at all that contains words denomi- 
nating her the " Head of Cities" — Secondly, that. 



32 

" on the very first serious occasion of controversy that 
" presented itself/' which was not that respecting Easter, 
the question was not referred hy the Irish Christians 
to Rome ; but on the contrary, her interference in it 
was entirely slighted by them — Thirdly, that in " the 
" dispute relative to the time of celebrating Easter," 
the facts were very different indeed from what you 
have represented them to be — Fourthly, that nothing 
like the supremacy now acknowledged by the Roman 
Catholics was attributed to Rome, by the Irish 
Church, for two centuries after the arrival of St. 
Patrick — nor, fifthly, could such a claim have existed, 
or been made, until above a century after his decease. 
There is no genuine canon of an ancient Irish 
synod, acknowledging the supremacy of Rome ; and 
none at all containing the words, " the Head of 
Cities," as referring to her. That to which I presume 
you allude, is taken from an ancient book of the 
church of Armagh, and will be found quoted by 
Archbishop Usher, in his Religion of the Ancient 
Irish, p. 87. It is not among those whose " authen- 
" ticity has been by high and critical authority 
" admitted ;" but manifestly one of those which you 
say are "pronounced to be of a much later date," 
p. 225; and therefore it has been excluded by 
Spelman and Wilkins, from their collections, and 
from the canons edited among St. Patrick's Opuscula, 
by Sir James Ware. It does indeed contain internal 
proofs of its much later origin, for it speaks of a 
reference, for judgment in the first instance, " ad 
"eathedram Archiepiscopi Hiberniensium, i. e. Pa- 



33 

" tricii ;" " to the chair of the A rchbishop of the Irish, i. e. 
"Patrick;" while the fact is undoubted, and thus stated 
iu your own words (p. '224:), that " it was not till 
" the beginning of the eighth century that the title of 
u Archbishop was known in Ireland.'' 

The words of this canon, making mention of the See 
of Rome, are as follows — it decrees, of any cause 
which cannot readily be determined by the prelate of 
Armagh, " ad sedem Apostolicam decrevimus esse 
" mittendam, id est ad Petri Apostoli cathedram, 
" auctoritatem Rornae urbis habentem ;" — " we decree 
" that it shall be sent to the Apostolic See, that is, 
" to the chair of the Apostle Peter, having the 
u authority of the city of Rome." Whosoever 
desires to see this decree, with its retinue of 
apocryphal matter, will find it transcribed from 
the Book of Armagh into Sir William Betham's 
Antiquarian Researches, p. 415-6 ; and I am confi- 
dent that you will no longer rely on it, when you 
learn, that the document in which it appears in the 
above-mentioned book, repeats the very story of St. 
Brigid's acquaintance with St. Patrick, which you 
have stated to be impossible in fact. It asserts that, 
" between St. Patrick, and Brigid, and St. Columba, 
" a friendship of love took place, so great that they 
" had but one heart and design." You have fixed 
the death of St. Patrick to the year ±65, (p. 226) 
and the birth of St. Columbkille to 521 (p. 242 ;) 
and you tell us, very truly (p. 258), that Brigid 
" was a child of twelve years old when St. Patrick 

D 



34 

" died ;" and " died herself A. D. 525, four years 
<tf after the birth of St. Colutnbkille"— as for the 
friendship of the former for the latter of these saints 
it must have been posthumous indeed — so much for 
the credibility of this precious record.* 

I have made some inquiry respecting the epithet, 
" Head of Cities ; " mu\ the first occasion on which I 
find it applied by the Irish to Rome, is in the letter 
of Cummianus, which you mention in your 271st 
page, and to which I shall hereafter refer (see 
Sylloge, p. 34.) — It was written about the year 633. 
I find the same epithet in the letter of St. Adamna- 
nus, in the same collection (p. 43), which bears 
date A. D. 700; both of these years were more 
than two centuries after the first arrival of St. 
Patrick ; and the canon above quoted, if at all 
genuine, must have been of still later date. 

But, secondly, " the first serious occasion of con- 
troversy" was not that concerning Easter ; nor was 
its decision referred by the Irish Christians to Rome : 
the contrary was the fact, and your own book shall 
prove it. The date of the paschal dispute was A. D. 
633, or thereabouts — (see your Hist. p. 272.) We 
shall turn now to the 264th page/ "It is supposed," 
you say, " to have been during his stay at Milan, 
" that Columbanus addressed that spirited letter to 



* I must be excused if I hesitate to give any further opinion 
here respecting the Book of Armagh, not having had an oppor- 
tunity to examine its contents and their handwriting, since I 
have had reason to suspect that it contains much apocryphal 
matter. 



35 

" Boniface IV. respecting the question of the three 
" chapters." Now, this letter, and this discussion, must 
have preceded the paschal controversy by some 
years ; for you inform us that St. Columbanus died 
44 on the 21st of November, A.D. 615." That this 
question, the nature of which I need not detail, was 
a serious one, you have sufficiently proved, where 
you represent it to have engaged the attention of 
princes, in a manner that " aivakened the alarm of 
the Roman court," and formed a subject for " the 
" decision of the fifth general council held in the 
" year 553 :'' it indeed agitated the entire Christian 
world, and was therefore a serious, as well as a pre- 
vious, occasion. Your comment on this letter is as 
follows : — " Setting aside the consideration of the 
" saint's orthodoxy on this point, his letter cannot 
" but be allowed the praise of unshrinking manliness 
" and vigour. Addressing Boniface himself in no 
" very complaisant terms, he speaks of his prede- 
" cessor, Pope Vigilius, with bitter, and in some 
" respects deserved, reproach ; declaring that pope to 
" have been the prime mover of all the scandal that 
" had occurred." But this, you say, is " compatible" 
with " the most profound and implicit reverence 
" towards the papacy." What — to abuse two succes- 
sive popes, and in this manner, and upon a question 
of orthodoxy ! I leave this to the reader to determine. 
At all events, you are surely under the obliga- 
tion of proving that "profound and implicit reverence" 
by some overt act, and not merely to imagine it first, 
and then to make conclusions from it. Yet it may 



36 

be said, and with far more propriety, that, after all, 
St. Columbanus was only an individual, and not the 
Irish church ; but that he spoke the sentiments of 
that church is quite indisputable from the testimony 
of Cardinal Baronius, with which you must have 
been acquainted, for it has been quoted by Archbishop 
Usher (p. 69), in his work which you refute. The 
cardinal informs us that " all the bishops that tvere 
" in Ireland, with most earnest study, rose up jointly 
"for the defence of the three chapters. And, when 
" they perceived that the church of Rome did both 
" receive the condemnation of the three chapters, and 
" strengthen the fifth synod with her consent, they 
" departed from her, and clave to the rest of the 
" schismatics — animated with that vain confidence, 
" that they did stand for the Catholic faith, while 
" they defended those things that were concluded 
" in the council of Chalcedon ;" against which the 
decree of the fifth synod was opposed. Whether or 
not the Irish deserved the name of schismatics I shall 
not now inquire ; the entire transaction demonstrates, 
that any connexion our early church might have had 
previously with Rome was quite voluntary and in- 
dependent ; and that, so far from acknowledging her 
supremacy, " on the very first serious occasion of 
u controversy which presented itself," the Irish bishops 
decidedly and unanimously opposed and rejected her 
authority. The date of this occurrence in Baronius' 
annals is 566, sixty-seven years before that which you 
call the first occasion, and which I now come to — the 
reference to the " Head of Cities" on the controversy 
respecting Easter. 



37 

This matter divides itself into two distinct histories, 
the relation of which will demonstrate, that you had 
no right whatsoever to assert, that for the decision of 
the question, " a deputation was despatched to Rome" 
by the Irish church. That deputation, of which you 
have given an account in your 271st page, was sent 
so late as the year 633 ; and, as Bede expressly in- 
forms us, (lib. 3, c. 3, Ec. Hist.) and you have allowed, 
by the inhabitants of the southern part of the island 
— " Gentes Scotorum quae in Australibus Hibernicse 
" insulae partibus morabantur." We have already- 
seen that the Abbe M'Geoghegan has stated, that the 
Roman mode of celebrating Easter was not conformed 
to by " some of their greatest saints, viz. St. Colum- 
" banus, St. Columba, St. Aidan, St. Finian, St. 
<< Colman, the monks of the Abbey of Hy, and many 
" others among the northern Scots," or Irish — the re- 
ference, therefore, made to Rome was not by the 
native Irish church. But even in the manner in 
which the story of that deputation is told by Cum- 
mianus, in his letter, although lie confers upon Rome 
the respectful title of the "Head of Cities," it appears 
manifest, that she was not then considered as pos- 
sessing, solely and exclusively, the supreme authority 
in ecclesiastical matters. He does, indeed, as you 
have mentioned, (p. 272,) enforce " the great argu- 
" ment derived from the unity of the church ;" but 
he also relies, as you have not thought fit to mention, 
on "the canonical decree of the fourfold apostolic 
" see, to wit, of Rome, Jerusalem, Antioch, and 
" Alexandria." " Statutum canonicum qucdemce sedis 



38 

" Apostolicce, Romanse, viz. Hierosolymitanse, An- 
f tiochenae, Alexandrinse." So that it appears, even 
after our limit of time, A.D. 600, that, in whatever 
degree of estimation the Head of Cities might have 
been possibly holden, she was not considered, even 
by her best friends in Ireland, as solely supreme in 
matters of ecclesiastical controversy. 

But there is another portion of this subject which 
remains to be considered. The greatest of the Irish 
saints, and the northern part of the island, united with 
the monks of Iona, in adhering, quite in opposition to 
Rome, to the ancient mode of celebrating Easter. 
This fact you acknowledge, (p. 273,) although 
not so fully as it is to be implied from Bede. The 
account of the Synod of Whitby, as related by that 
historian, has been given before; the arguments made 
use of by the Irish clergy at that meeting were, the 
practice of St. Columbkille and his successors, tradi- 
tionally continued from St. John the Apostle ; not a 
single word of St. Patrick, or St. Peter. I have 
remarked upon this most striking fact before, in con- 
nection with our consideration of the former of those 
saints, as the first great missionary from Rome ; I 
shall urge it here again, as it bears upon the supre- 
macy of St. Peter — and strange to say, so far from this 
being referred to by the Irish church, it is not even 
mentioned by them in the argument. The matter, in- 
deed, was brought into discussion, in consequence of 
letters from Pope Honorius I. and the clergy of 
Rome, addressed to the people of Ireland ; but 
these were couched in terms which were far 



39 

from implying an assumed superiority ;* the decision 
was left to, and made by the King ; and Wilfred, 
the Romish agent, instead of demurring to the 
jurisdiction, argued, apparently for the first time — 
(certainly Oswin and his people were not previously 
convinced of it) — for the authority of St. Peter. All 
this is very unlike the interference of an acknowledged 
supremacy; and unquestionably it was quite the reverse 
of acknowledged by the Irish bishop and clergy ; for 
St. Colman was so discontented with the decision, that 
" he resigned this see of Lindisfarne, and returned to 
" his home in Ireland, taking along with him all the 
" Irish monks." p. 282. 

I now come, in the 4th place, to a still further 
proof, that the supremacy of Rome was not acknow- 
ledged by the Irish church, even at the period I have 
been last speaking of ; which, let it be remembered, 
was so late as the year 633, and more than two 
centuries after the alleged arrival of St. Patrick. The 
venerable Bede is again our authority — in speaking 
of Oswin, the king of Northumberland, already men- 
tioned, he uses these remarkable words, — "Intellexerat 
u enim veraciter Oswi, qua m vis educatus a Scotis, 
" quiaRomana essetCatholica et Apostolica ecclesia." 
11 For Oswin truly understood, although he was 
" educated by the Scots, how the Church of Rome 



* The style of Honorius to the Irish clergy was exhorting 
them — " exhortans" — that they would not continue to cele- 
brate Easter, " contrary to paschal computations, and the 
,c Synodal decrees of the Bishops of the whole worhL" — Eede, 
lib/ 2. c. 19. 



40 

" was Catholic and Apostolic" — (lib. 3. c. 29.) un- 
questionably implying, that a contrary opinion was 
more likely to be imbibed from an Irish education. 
But again, the same undoubted authority has preserved, 
and presented us with a letter, written A.D. 609, 
and directed from Laurentius, Mellitus, & Justus, who 
had been sent from Rome to England to assist 
Austin, " to the Scots that inhabit Ireland? In 
this letter they write thus — " But knowing the Britons, 
" we thought that the Scots were better than they. 
" But we have learned by Bishop Daganus coming 
" into this island, and Columbanus, the abbot, coming 
" into France, that these differ nothing from the Britons 
" in their conversation. For Bishop Daganus, coming 
" unto us, would not only not eat with us, but not 
" so much as eat his meat in the house where we 
" were." To this remarkable passage you have 
referred in your 270th page ; but it is not so quoted 
as to be applicable, with all its real bearings, to the 
subject now in controversy between us. I would 
make the following very material use of it here. It 
declares that the British and Irish churches agreed with 
each other in this matter ; the mode, therefore, in 
which Austin's efforts to press upon the Britons the 
supreme authority of the court of Rome were received 
will, while it is instructive and interesting to detail, 
demonstrate clearly what were the opinions on that 
subject with which the Irish so fully sympathised. I 
shall take the account from Stapleton's Translation of 
Bede, printed at St. Omer's, A.D. 1622, lib. 11. c. 2. 
The British priests, assembled in a Synod, had 



41 

acknowledged the preaching of Austin to be the true 
way of righteousness ; " But yet, they said, that 
" they could not alter and change their old customs 
" and ordinances, without the consent of their clergy 
" and people" — a remarkable circumstance, by the 
way — " they desired, therefore, that they might 
" have a second synod of a greater multitude." 
Previously to this second meeting, it had been 
agreed by the British bishops and clergy, to form 
their opinions of Austin and his mission from his 
demeanour towards them ; he was permitted to enter 
first into the place where the synod were to meet, 
and they, on entering, were thus to judge of him, 
according to the following advice. " If, when ye 
" approach near, he ariseth courteously to you, think 
" ye he is the servant of Christ, and so hear ye him 
" obediently ; but if he despise you, nor will vouch - 
" safe to rise at your presence, which are the more 
" in number, let him likewise be despised of you : 
" and truly so did they. For it happened that, when 
" they came thither, St. Austin was already there, 
" and sat in his chair ; which, when they saw, straight 
" waxing wroth, they noted him of pride ; and there- 
" fore endeavoured to overthwart and gainsay what- 
" soever he proposed." He told them that, " if 
M they would agree with Rome, in the time of 
" Easter, the ministerie of baptisme according to the 
" Roman church," &c. ; " all your other ceremo- 
" nies, rites, fashions and customes, though they he 
" contrary to ours, yet we will willingly suffer them." 
But they answered, " that they would doe none of 



42 

" the things requested, neither would they compte 
" him for their archbishop ; saying with themselves — 
" nay, if he would not so much as rise to us, truelie, 
" the more we should now subjecte ourselves to him, 
" the more would he hereafter despise us, and set us 
" at naught." In consequence of this Austin departed, 
denouncing against them the vengeance of heaven ; 
which afterwards was, as Bede informs us, fully 
wreaked on them by Edilfred, an English prince, when 
" foule slaughter of this unfaithfull and naughty 
" people took place." " It is reported," says the his- 
torian, "That there were slaine in the warre, of them 
" which came to praie, about 2,200 men ; and only 
" fiftie to have escaped by flight " — these were 
the priests and others of the British church, who 
thus resisted unto death the arrogant attempts 
that were in this manner made, to impose upon them 
the supremacy of Rome. I cannot resist copying 
here a document, which can be found in the original 
Welch language, among the Concilia of Wilkins, v. 1. 
p. 26. It is styled in Latin " Responsio Abbatis 
" Bangor ad Augustinum monachum, petentem subjec- 
" tionem Ecclesiae Romanae." " The answer of the 
" Abbot of Bangor, to Austin the monk, seeking sub- 
" jection to the Church of Rome." " Be it known, 
" and without doubt unto you, that we all are, and 
" every one of us, obedient and servants to the church 
" of God, and to the Pope of Rome, and to every 
" true Christian and godly, to love every one in his 
" degree, in charity perfect ; and to help every one 
€ f of them by word and deed, to be the children 



43 

" of God ; and other obedience than this I do not 
" know due to him whom you name to be Pope, nor 
" to be the father of fathers, to be claimed and to be 
" demanded ; and this obedience we are ready to 
" give and to pay to him, and to every Christian 
" continually. Besides, we are under the government 
" of the Bishop of Caerlion upon Usk, who is to 
" oversee under God over us, to cause us to keep 
" the way spiritual." Such were the meek Christians 
who were thus cruelly butchered, through the influ- 
ence of a proud bigot — And who, after perusing these 
documents, would not sympathise with Taliessin, 
the ancient bard of the Britons, in his zealous strain, 
written shortly after this period — there is no one, my 
dear sir, who ought to respond to it more loudly and 
more fervently than yourself — a warm proclaimer of 
liberty in national song — 

Wo be to that priest yborne, 

That will not cleanly weed his corne, 

And preach his charge among ; 
Wo be to that shepheard, (I say,) 
That will not watch his fold alway, 

As to his office doth belong; 
Wo be to him that doth not keepe 
From Romish wolves his sheepe, 

With staffe and weapon strong. * 

I feel, therefore, that Archbishop Usher was fully 
justified in alleging the independence of the ancient 

* Chronicle of Wales, p. 264. 



Irish cburch ; and that his judgment on that subject was 
founded on facts, established upon testimony in every 
respect unexceptionable, and which could not be 
mistaken. To this I must add, although I do not use it 
as an argument, that similar is the impression made 
by them upon the minds of our best modern writers of 
Ecclesiastical History; for instanceMosheim,who writes 
thus (Ecc Hist. p. 2, c. 2.) — " The ancient Britons 
" and Scots persisted long in the maintenance of their 
" religious liberty ; and neither the threats, nor the 
" promises, of the legates of Rome, could engage them 
" to submit to the decrees and authority of the 
"ambitious Pontiff; as appears manifestly from the 
" testimony of Bede" — and Milner, who says, H that 
" attempts were made all this time, by the bishops of 
" Rome, to induce the Irish to unite themselves to 
" the English church" — meaning that of Austin — 
" but in vain." He fixes the year 716 at the period 
when " this people were reduced to the Romish 
" communion." — See also Godwin de Praesul. p. 14, 
Spotiswood, and others. 

There are some other facts in the history of the 
Irish church, connected with its independence, which 
I feel that it would be wrong to omit. You have 
referred to a Latin poem of St. Secundinus (p. 227) ; 
" of whose authenticity some able critics have seen 
"no reason whatever to doubt" — he was nephew of 
St. Patrick, and died A. D. 448. This poem * was 
written in honour of the saint ; and he is spoken of 

* See Patr. opuscula, p. 146. 



45 

in it thus — " Constans in Dei timore, et fide immo- 
"bilis; super quern oedificatur ut Pet rum ecclesia." 
— " He is constant in the fear of God, and steadfast 
* in the faith ; upon whom the church is builded, as 
11 upon Peter." St. Patrick is called Papa or Pope, 
a name common in these times to all bishops, by 
Cummianus, in the letter so often alluded to. The 
see of Armagh is also called the apostolic city in the 
Book of Armagh ; and by Marianus Scotus, so late 
as the year 1014. Much more upon this subject will 
be found collected together in Usher's religion of 
the ancient Irish, at the end of the 7th chapter, and 
in his sylloge. One of the letters in that collection, 
(p. 96), is an epistle addressed to Murchardach, 
king of Ireland, by Ansel m, Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, so late as the twelfth century; and in it this 
expression occurs — " Item dicitur, Episcopos in terra 
" vestra passim eligi." — " It is also said, that the 
" bishops in your land are every where elected." 
This remnant of independence continued thus long. 
St. Bernard in his life of Malachy (c. 11.) in- 
forms us, that this prelate was grieved, that Ire- 
land had never yet received an archbishop's Pall 
from Rome — " Usque adhuc pallio caruisse" — and 
the first were sent over here A. D. 1151. We 
are informed that the first archbishop of Armagh 
that was appointed by papal provision was Egan 
Mac Gillividir, in the year 1206; and this was 
only on the opportunity that offered of deciding a 
contested election — even so it would not have been 
attempted, were not the dastardly John upon the 



m 

British throne ; and, still further, it became necessary 
to purchase the consent of that mean prince, by a 
gift to him of 300 marks of silver, and 3 of gold. 
See the account of this prelate in Harris' Ware. 

Finally, no such claim as that of the supremacy 
exercised by the present See of Rome could have 
existed, or been put forward, until above a century 
after the decease of St. Patrick, who " died on the 
17th of March, 4>65" (p. 226) ; and for this plain 
reason, that the pope had not himself assumed the title 
of Catholic, or universal bishop until some years after : 
upon this subject there can be no doubt. There are 
extant letters written, A. D. 591, or thereabouts, by 
the Pope Gregory I. entitled the Great, condemning 
John, Bishop of Constantinople, for assuming that 
title— (See Greg.Epis. lib. iv. Epis. 76, 82, and 78) ; 
in the latter of these, addressed to the Empress 
Constantia, the prelate expresses himself in the fol- 
lowing very remarkable terms : — 

" Sed cum se, nova prsesumptione atque superbia, 
idem f rater mens universurn episcopum appellet, — (ita 
ut, sanctEe memorise decessoris mei tempore, adscribi 
se in synodo tali hoc superbo vocabulo faceret, 
quamvis cuncta acta illius synodi, sede contradicente 
Apostolica, soluta sint,) — triste mihi aliquid Serenis- 
simus Dominus innuit, quod non eum corripuit, qui 
superbit ; sed me magis ab intentione mea declinare 
studuit, qui in hac causa, Evangeliorum et canonum 
statuta, humilitatis atque rectitudinis virtute, defendo. 
Triste autem valde est, ut patienter feratur, quatenus, 
despectis omnibus, prsedictus frater et coepiscopus 



47 

meus solus conetur appellari episcopus. Sed in hoc 
ejus swperbid quid aliud nisi propinqua jam Anti- 
christi esse tempora designatur? Quia videlicet 
imitator qui, spretis in sociali guadio angelorum 
legiouibus, ad cuhnen conatus est singularitatis 
erumpere dicens — super astra cceli exaltabo solium 
raeum, sedebo in monte testamenti, in lateribus 
aquilonis, et ascendam super altitudinem nubium, et 
ero similis Altissimo." 

" But when this my same brother, with a novel 
" presumption and pride, calls himself ' Catholic 
" Bishop,' — (so as to cause himself, in the time of my 
" predecessor of holy memory, to be addressed in a 
4 * synod by that proud name, although all the acts of 
" that synod, the Apostolical See being against them, 
" be dissolved.) — His Most Serene Highness," (the 
Emperor,) u gave me some sorrow, in that he did not 
" correct him who had thus arrogated, but rather 
" studiously tried to turn me the more from my 
" intention — me, who in this cause defend the ordi- 
" nances of the gospels and the canons, for the 
" sake of humility and rectitude. But it is a very 
u lamentable thing, that he should patiently permit so 
" far, that, in contempt of all others, this my brother 
" and fellow bishop should endeavour to be called sole 
" bishop. But indeed what else is manifested in this 
" his pride, but that the times of Antichrist are 
" nigh at hand, even now ? Because, forsooth, he 
" is imitated, who, scorning social bliss among legions 
" of angels, strove to break forth to the height of 
" singularity, saying, (Isaiah, xiv. 13,) — ' I will exalt 



48 



" * my throne above the stars of Heaven — I will sit in 
" ' the mountain of the covenant — in the sides of the 
" ' North — I will ascend above the height of the 
" < clouds* — I will be like to the Most High.' " 

At this very time, however, the title seems to have 
been coveted by Gregory himself; and we have 
already seen how his claim to it was urged, by Austin 
and his agents in Britain, very shortly afterwards ; but 
it was not confirmed to the Pope, until the Emperor 
Phocas conferred it upon him, A. D. 606. This is 
a fact well known, and universally admitted; at all 
events it is quite manifest, that the superior authority 
belonging to Catholic or universal Bishop, could not 
have been claimed by Rome, or acknowledged, before 
the year 591 — the date of the above-mentioned letters. 

But, even if such honor should have been paid to 
Rome as you contend, and that disputes had been 
referred to her for decision, it would go no farther 
than to prove a choice of that See, as arbiter ; and 
such a choice might, at this early period, have been 
with the utmost propriety made, considering the very 
different spirit that animated the pontiffs of Rome, 
during the first centuries of the Christian sera, and 
even down to the pontificate of Gregory I. I shall 
gladly here transcribe the candid confession of Arch- 
bishop Usher, (Relig. &c. p. 87,) as being perfectly 
in unison with my own sentiments on the point. 
" This I will say, that, as it is most likely that St. 
" Patrick had a special regard unto the church of 
" Rome, from whence he was sent for the conversion 
" of the island ; so, if I myself had lived in his daies, 



49 

H for the resolution of a doubtful question, I should 
" as willingly have listened to the judgment of the 
" church of Rome, as to the determination of any 
" church in the whole world ; so reverend an esti- 
u mation have I of the integretie of that church, as it 
" stood in those good daies. But that St. Patrick 
" was of opinion, that the church of Rome was sure 
" ever afterwards to continue in that good estate, and 
" that there was a perpetual privilege annexed unto 
" that See, that it should never erre in judgement : 
" or that the Pope's sentences were always to be held 
" as infallible oracles ; that I will never believe : 
M sure I am that my countrymen after him were of 
" farre other beleefe, who were so farre from sub- 
" mining themselves in this sort to whatsoever should 
" proceed from the See of Rome, that they oftentimes 
" stood out against it, when they had little cause so 
" to doe" 

The next subject that you mention is put forward 
in the following words, — " That they,'* the Christians 
of the primitive Irish church, " celebrated mass under 
" the ancient traditional names of the holy mysteries 
" of the eucharist, the sacrifice of salvation, the imuio- 
" lation of the host, is admitted by Usher himself. 
" But he might have found language still stronger 
" employed by them, to express the mystery their 
" faith acknowledged in that rite." — To this is added 
in a note,* — " Following the belief of the ancient 

* In another note to the words " sacrifice of salvation, 5 ' you 
have thus observed, — " The phrase used by St. Chrysostom, 

E 



50 

" church, as to a real presence in the sacrament, they 
" adopted the language also by which this mystery 
" was expressed ; and the phrase of ' making the body 
" of Christ,' which occurs so frequently in the litur- 
" gies of the primitive church, is found likewise in the 
" writings of the first Irish Christians. ThusAdamnan, 

"in speaking of the progress of the faith in the British isles, 
" implies in itself, that the belief held in those regions respecting 
" the Eucharist was the very same which he himself enforced in 
" his writings, and which the Catholic church maintains to the 
" present day. " They have erected churches," (says the saint,) 
"and altars of sacrifice." But it will not be expected that I 
should here diverge into comments on this note ; for, besides 
that it would lead me into a very extended and unnecessary di- 
gression, to prove that, even were it here implied that the eucha- 
rist of the British churches " was the very same which he him- 
Ci self enforced by his writings," it by no means follows that it 
is that " which the Catholic church maintains to the present 
day," but very far different —all that is important on the subject 
will be presented in commenting on your text. I shall, there- 
fore, only observe, that I presume that the passage which you 
have quoted from St. Chrysostom, is one which we have already 
noticed. The expressions which he there makes use of are 
these — kcii S-ufftasvgiu, TnTrYiyacnv ; which, while it may be pro- 
perly construed, "and they erected altars of sacrifice," by no 
means implies any thing of doctrine respecting the Eucharist, 
such as " the Catholic church maintains to the present day" — 
nothing of transubstantiation, nothing of immolation — but 
rather what is intended by the following verses ; in Psalm 
50, verse 14 — "Offer unto God thanksgiving, and pay 
"thy vows unto the Most High;" or, in Psalm 116, 
verses 13 and 17 — " I will take the cup of salvation — I will 
" offer to thee the sacrifice of salvation, and call upon the name 
"of the Lord." Allow me also to remark, that I am much 
surprised that, when you referred to St. Chrysostom for the 
character of Christian doctrine in Ireland, you did not at once 
perceive, that his evidence ought to have settled the question of 
the introduction of Christianity into this country, and the 
establishment of churches there, previously to his decease, 
which took place A,D. 407. 



51 

" in his life of St. Columba, tells us of that saint 
" ordering the Bishop Cronan, 4 Christi corpus ex 
" more conficere,' Lib. 1. c. 44. In later Irish 
" writers numerous passages to the same purport may 
" be found ; but, confining myself to those only of the 
" earlier period, I shall add but the following strong 
" testimony from Sedulius: — 

" Corpus, sanguis, aqua ; tria vita3 munera nostra) : 
" Fonte renacentes, membris et sanguine Christi 
u Vescimur, atque ideo templum Deitatis habemur : 
a Quod servare Deus nos annuat immacu latum, 
" Et faciat tenues tanto Mansore capaces." 

Car. Paschale Lib. iv. 

Before I enter upon this important subject I must 
observe, and it should be particularly noted, that it is 
so intimately connected with a difference of meaning, 
attached by different individuals to the same terms, 
that it is quite necessary to inquire what signification 
was in the mind of those whom we assert to agree 
with -others, before we can be at all certain of that 
agreement being any thing more than the use of the 
same terms. Thus the real presence of Christ in the 
sacrament of the Lord's Supper is holden by most 
churches ; but in one sense by the Roman Catholic, 
and in another essentially different by the Protestant 
so that it becomes necessary to inquire what Usher 
intended to signify, when he used the words sacrifice, 
mass, host, and others. 

I must likewise, before entering into the argument, 
again complain of the vague manner in which you 
quote your authorities ; in a case where your assertions 



52 

implicating a writer such as Usher, required surely 
to be supported by a very particular reference, ere 
they could be at all admitted by the intelligent part 
of the public. Is it fair that we should be put upon 
the examination of that learned man's voluminous 
works, or those eight volumes of St. Chrysostom, in 
order that we might with safety affirm, that they have 
no ivhere spoken in the exact manner that you have 
said ; and why have you not presented us with even 
one of " the liturgies of the Primitive church," or a part 
of one, by which we might try the truth of the allegation 
you so confidently advance ? Here again I am forced 
to the proof of a negative ; but here also I fear not 
to allege, that Usher makes, in the spirit of its meaning, 
no such admission as you attribute to him ; that no 
liturgy of the primitive church in Ireland, within 
two centuries of St. Patrick's arrival, makes use of 
the phrase that you have quoted, nor do the writings 
of its early teachers ; and that one, whose authority 
upon this occasion you must acknowledge to be 
decisive, takes the same view as the articles of the 
Church of England of this great question — in fine, 
that the present Roman Catholic tenets respecting it 
are adverse, not only to tie opinions of Usher, and 
the early Irish Christians, but to that of the primitive 
church in general, and the Bible. 

I presume that the following is the admission of 
the archbishop to which you allude — and let me 
remark that he is writing of Adamnanus, A.D. 700 ; 
and of what took place at the obsequies of Colum- 
banus, A.D. 615 ; neither of which dates are entirely 



53 

primitive — but I do not press this point — " In Adam- 
" nanus," he says, (Relig. &c. p. 35.) " the sacred 
" rainisterie of the Eucharist and the solemnities of 
" the Masse are taken for the same thing. So like- 
" wise, in the relation of the passages that concerne 
U the obsequies of Columbanus, we finde, that Missam 
" celebrare et Missam agere, is made to be the same 
M with divina celebrare mysteria, et salutis hostiam, (or 
M salutare sacrificium,) immolare — the saying of 
" Masse, the same with the celebration of the 
" divine mysteries, and the oblation of the healthful 
" sacrifice ; for by that terme was the administration 
" of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper at that time 
" usually designed." 

Now the important matter for us here to determine 
is, what meaning Usher affixed to these terms ; and, 
had you thought fit to have laid before your readers 
all that he has said in the place referred to, that sig- 
nification would have appeared as clearly as light ; 
for he particularly remarks, that he applied a very 
different meaning to the terms thus employed by him, 
from that affixed to them by modem Romanists. 
He proceeds, immediately after the sentences already 
quoted, thus — "For, as in our beneficence, (Heb. 13. 
" 16.) and communicating to the necessities of the 
" poore, (which are sacrifices with which God 
" is well pleased, ) wee are taught to give both our 
" selves and our almes first unto the Lord, and after to 
" our brethren by the will of God ; so is it in this 
" ministry of the blessed sacrament ; the service is 
" first presented to God, (from which the sacrament 



54 

" it selfe is called the Eucharist, because therein wee 
" offer a speciall sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving 
" to God,) and then communicated unto the use of 
" God's people. In the performance of which part 
" of the service, both the minister was said to give 
" and the communicant to receive the sacrifice ; 
a as well as, in respect to the former part, they were 
" said to offer the same unto the Lord. For they 
" did not distinguish the sacrifice from the sacrament, 

" AS THE ROMANISTS DO NOW-A-DAYS ; but USed 

" the name of sacrifice indifferently, both of that 
" which was offered unto God, and of that which 
" was given to, and received by the communicant. 
" Therefore we read of offering the sacrifice unto 
" God — of giving the sacrifice to man — and of 
" receiving the sacrifice from the hands of that 
" minister ; as in that sentence of the synod attributed 
" unto St. Patrick, ' He who deserveth not to 
" receive the sacrament in his life, how can it helpe 
" him after his death ? Whereby it doth appear, 
" that the sacrifice of the elder times was not like 
" unto the new Masse of the Romanists/ " I 
presume that it is now sufficiently manifest, that 
archbishop Usher has not made any admission at all 
consonant with the meaning that you have attributed 
to him ; and certainly nothing could be farther from 
his intention, or from that of the ancient Irish 
Christians whom he quotes, or refers to, than the 
coupling of the great modern mystery of transub- 
stantiation, or the equally modern doctrine of the 
actual sacrifice in the Mass of the body of Christ, 



55 

with the " ancient traditional names of the holy 
? mysteries of the Eucharist, the sacrifice of salvation, 
" and the immolation of the host." 

With respect to the liturgies of the primitive 
church — if you mean the Irish church, I have never 
seen or heard of, nor do I know or believe that there 
exist, any that contain the sentence which you say 
" occurs so frequently " in them ; and if you intend 
by them those ancient ones of the foreign Roman 
Catholics, we have nothing to do with them here. 

I proceed to the writings of the first Irish Christians. 
I cannot prove a negative ; I can only challenge you, 
and I do so with great confidence, to produce one 
sentence from them, of an earlier date than our limit 
of A.D. 600, in which " the phrase of making the 
" body of Christ " occurs — you have given us no 
instance ; for Adamnan was a writer of the year 700, 
or thereabouts. But you say, that " In later Irish 
" writers numerous passages to the same purport may 
" may be found" — I fully admit this to be probable, 
but they make nothing to our question. You conclude 
with saying that, " confining yourself to those only 
" of the earlier period," you will add the " strong 
" testimony" of Sedulius ; then follow five verses 
from the Carmen Paschale of that poet, in which 
there is not one word of " the making of the body 
" of Christ ;" and whether they be "to the same 
" purport," or not, depends upon the opinion which he 
had of the presence of Christ in the sacrament, and 
of the manner in which communicants feed upon His 
body and blood. In order to explain the views of 



56 

Sedulius upon this subject, it is to be regretted that 
you did not let him also, as well as Usher, speak more 
fully for himself, and that you withheld from us the 
following verses, which occur in the same poem from 
which you quoted the five former ones. (lib. 4.) 

Deniqne Pontificium princeps, summusque sacerdos, 
Quis nisi Christus adest ? gemini libaminis author ; 
Ordine Melchisedech, cui dantur munera semper 
Quae sua sunt, segetis fructus, et gaudia vitis. 

Here it is said, as every Christian believer must 
hold, that Christ, " the prince of pontiffs and great 
"High Priest," is present in the sacrament; but whether 
spiritually or corporeally in the mind of Sedulius 
will appear from the sequel, where he calls our Lord 
H the author of the double libation ; of the order of 
" Melchisedech ; to whom are always given gifts 
«' which are his own — the fruit of the corn, and the 
*-* delights of the vine." — Here surely there must 
be a strange transubstantiating power operating 
in the imagination, before we can discover either 
truly really and substantially, the body and blood 
of Christ ; or indeed in any way a sacrifice of Him, 
whether bloody or unbloody ; but solely that offering 
of " the sacrifice of thanksgiving," of which Usher 
speaks ; and which was rendered by the devout 
believers, in obedience to their dying Lord's command, 
" Do this in remembrance of me.* 

* The sentiments of the Irish divines upon this subject con- 
tinued to a late period unchanged by the innovations of the 



57 

But I have promised to advance the authority upon 
the subject of one, whose opinion you will acknow- 
ledge to be decisive, at least where you are party to 
a controversy — I must introduce him to the public? 
although he is already well known to your readers. 
In writing of John Scotus Erigena, in your 305th 
page, where you mention his denial of the real 
presence, you express yourself thus — " In stating, 
" however, as he is said to have done, that the 
" sacrament of the Eucharist is not the ' true body 
" and true blood/ he might have had reference solely 
" to the doctrine put forth then recently by Paschasius 
" Radbert, who maintained that the body present in 
" the Eucharist was the same carnal and palpable 
" body which was born of the Virgin, which suffered 
" on the cross, and rose from the dead ; whereas the 
" belief of the Catholic church, on this point of 
" doctrine, has always been, that the body of 
" Christ is under the symbols, not corporeally, or 
" carnally, but in a spiritual manner." And to this 
you have added, in a note — " Thus explained, in 
i( perfect consonance, as he says, with the doctrine 
" of the council of Trent, by the celebrated missionary 

modern Roman Catholics — Claudius, one of the founders of 
the University of Paris, and an Irishman, expresses himself 
thus, about the year 815 — " Because bread doth confirm 
" the body, and wine doth work blood in the flesh, therefore 
'the one is mystically referred to the body of Christ, 
" the other to his blood." — And Henry Crumpe, a monk 
of Baltinglass, A. D. 1384, says— " The body of Christ in the 
" sacrament of the altar is only a looking-glass to the body of 
" Christ in heaven." (Ush. Rel. &c. p. 43.) 



58 

" Verron : — ' Ergo corpus Christi, seu Christus, est 
" in symbolis, spirituali modo seu spiritualiter, et non 
" corporali seu carnali, nee corporaliter seu car- 
'< naliter.' Regula fid. Cath. c. 2. §. 11." 

You are therefore, yourself, sir, in this sentence, 
the authority by which we shall decide this point. 
Believe me I do not mean merely to jest ; I think it 
quite clear, either that you do not understand the 
subject upon which you write, or are ignorant of 
what Protestants assert in their protests concerning it. 
You have stated what you allege to have always 
been the belief of the Catholic church, and of course, 
in your opinion, to have been that also of the early 
Christian church, founded by St. Patrick in Ireland — 
but far from denying the fact, that the early Irish 
Christians did think thus of the Eucharist, it is my 
great object to prove it. 

We are therefore agreed in every thing but one, 
and that is, that I think this doctrine to be exactly 
that of the modern Protestant, while you consider 
it to be precisely that of the now Roman Catholic 
church. This part of the question, however, is easily 
decided ; and a placing together of the several views, 
will enable the simplest reader to form an imme- 
diate judgment for himself. Concerning the doctrine 
" of the real presence in the Eucharist" — 

What has 4i always been" in your judgment, 
" the belief of the Catholic church " in Ireland. — 
" That the body of Christ is, under the symbols, 
" not corporeally, or carnally, but in a spiritual 
" manner." p. 305. 



59 

28th Article of the Church of England — " To 
" such as rightly, worthily, and with faith, re- 
" ceive the same, the bread which we break is a 
" partaking of the body of Christ ; and likewise the 
" cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of 
" Christ." — The body of Christ is taken, and eaten in 
" the supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual 

" MANNER." 

" Ita definit Concilium Tridentinum, Sess. 13 
" can I." the Council of Trent thus decides — " Si 
" quis negaverit in sanctissimae Eucharistse sacra- 
" mento contineri, vere realiter et substantialiter, 
" corpus et sanguinem, unsi cum anima et Divinitate 
" Domini nostri Jesu Christi, ac proinde totum 
u Christum ; sed dixerit tantummodo esse in eo, ut in 
11 signo, vel figura, aut virtute — anathema sit." 

" If any one shall deny that there is contained 
" in the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist, truly, 
" really, and substantially, the body and 
" blood, together with the soul and divinity of our 
" Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore the entire Christ; 
" but shall say that they are only in it as in a sign or 
"figure, or virtually — let him be accursed." 

See Dens Theology, V. v. p. 278. Ed. Dub. 1832. 
N. 20. De reali Christi praesentia," &c. 

It is quite unnecessary to make any further comment 
here ; but it surely does afford some proof of the folly of 
this tenet, that it presents itself to a mind intelligent 
as yours, in such a manner, that you cannot but couple 
it with the idea of heresy. The doctrine of transub- 
stantiation is indeed one, as Dean Swift says, " the 



60 

" belief of which makes everything else unbelievable"— 
one that alters the very character of miracle, which is 
to testify to the senses, and thus to prepare the 
mind by the divine operations exhibited to them, 
for the reception in faith of divine truths which are 
revealed, and which the exercise of reason merely 
could never enable man to acquire. But this doctrine 
commences with silencing the evidence of the senses 
altogether ; nay further, commands us to believe against 
their testimony — and what then is the matter of faith 
thus forced upon the mind ? — a doctrine contra- 
dictory to sense, repugnant to reason, and inconsistent 
with the entire tenor of the revelation of God's 
Word. 

It remains now shortly to shew, that the doctrine 
of the modern Roman Catholics on this subject is not 
only contrary to Usher's, and to yours, and to that 
of the primitive Irish Christians, but to that of the 
early church in general, and to the Bible. 

Of the doctrine of transubstantiation, as respects 
other parts of Christendom, Erasmus (in 1 Cor. vii.) 
says thus, " In synaxi Transubstantionem sero 
" definivit Ecclesia ;" nor was it introduced into any 
church, until the second council of Nice, A.D. 787. 

There is a very remarkable testimony on this sub- 
ject given by a Roman Pontiff, Gelasius, about the year 
476 ; whose work "De duabus naturis contra Euty- 
chium," is printed in Bib. Pat.Ludg, 1677, T. viii. p. 
703. He there expresses himself thus — " Certe sacra- 
" mentum sumimus corporis etsanguinisChristi; divina 
" res est, propter quod, et per eadem, divinse efficimur 



61 

" consortes naturae; et tamen esse non desinit sub- 
" stantia vel natiira panis et vini'' — though, by 
taking the sacrament, " we are made to become par- 
" takers of the divine nature, yet, notwithstanding, 
" it does not cease to be the substance or nature of 
" bread and wine " — he adds " et certe imago et 
" similitudo corporis et sanguinis Christi, in actione 
" mysteriorum celebrantur." 

With respect to the record of highest antiquity 
and authority, the Scriptures, transubstantiation is 
allowed to be entirely without warrant from them ; 
except so far as is implied from that construction of 
the term, is, in the sentence, " This is my body," 
which makes it to have a literal signification — a con- 
struction which would equally convert, " truly, really, 
" and substantially," our blessed Lord into a door, 
(John x. 7.) or a vine (John xv. 1.) ; the stars and 
candlesticks of the book of Revelation, into angels 
and churches ; the ears of corn and kine of Pharaoh's 
dream into years ; the very cup in the passage before 
us into the New Testament ; or any other emblem 
which is mentioned in the Bible according to the 
idiom of its original languages by the terms is or am, 
into the thing itself which it is thus said to repre- 
sent. The parable of the tares will present the best 
example of the absurdity and ignorance of this ; 
read our Saviour's exposition of its meaning, as you 
will find it in St. Matthew— (c. 12. v. 37.)— " He 
" that soweth the good seed is the Son of man : the 
" field is the world ; the good seed are the children 
" of the wicked one ; the enemy that sowed them is 



62 

" the devil ; the harvest is the end of the world ; 
" and the reapers are the angels."* 

Transubstantiation is not only not to be found in 
the primitive authority for all Christian doctrine, but it 
and the sacrifice of the Mass are totally at variance with 
the following important passages in the Epistle to the 
Hebrews, (ix. 24, &c, x 10, &c.) — " Christ is not en- 
" tered into the holy places made xvith hands, which are 
" the figures of the true ; but into heaven itself, now 
" to appear in the presence of God for us : nor 
" yet that he should offer himself often." And 
again — " We are sanctified through the offering of 
" the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And 
c< every priest standeth daily ministering, and offer- 
" ing oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never 
" take away sins : but this Man / after he had offered 
" one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down on the right 
" hand of God ; from henceforth expecting till his 
" enemies be made his footstool. For, by one 



* Strange to say, Fisher, Roman Catholic bishop of Ro- 
chester, seems to consider the words of Scripture to be against 
this doctrine, and that it can only be maintained on the autho- 
rity of the Fathers. (Fisher de capt. Babil. c. 10.) " Dixi- 
" mus majorem habendam esse fidem usu diuturno quern a 
" primis ipsis patribus Ecclesia certo traditum confidit, quam 
" nudis ipsis Evangelii verbis" — and again — " ejus certi- 
l( tudo" — viz. : — " sacerdotem veram Christi carnem et san- 
'• guinem consecrare " — non tamhabeatur ex verbo Evangelii, 
" quam ex patrum interpretatione. " What would Pope Ge- 
lasius or Erasmus have said to this ? Or how is it to be recon- 
ciled with all that has been said, of the most strictly literal 
interpretation being necessary to those who uphold the real and 
corporeal presence. 



63 

" OFFERING, HE HATH PERFECTED FOR EVER them 

that are sanctified" 

The third head of doctrine you notice thus — " The 
" ancient practice of offering up prayers for the 
" dead,* and the belief of a middle state of existence 
" after this life upon which that practice is founded, 
" formed also parts of their creed ; though of the 
" locality of the purgatorial fire their notions were, 
u like those of the ancient fathers, vague and unde- 
" lined. In an old life of St. Brendan, who lived in 
" the sixth century, it is stated, the prayer of the 
" living doth much profit the dead ; and among the 
" canons of a very early Irish synod, there is one 
< ; entitled « Of Oblation for the Dead." Of the 
" frequent practice, indeed, of prayer and alms-giving 
" for the relief of departed souls, there are to be 
" found throughout the records of those times abun- 
u dant proofs. In a tract attributed to Cummian, 
" who lived in the seventh century, and of whose 
" talent and learning we shall hereafter have occasion 

* You have here the following note, quoting from Ter- 
tullian — " Oblationes pro defunctis annua die facimus." — Of 
this passage I must remark, that as it relates to the practice of 
the church out of Ireland, and one too condemned expressly 
by a canon of an Irish synod, it proves nothing for the case 
you are advocating ; I shall, therefore, dismiss it briefly with 
two remarks — the first, that you have not quoted it fully ; it is 
thus in the original — " Oblationes pro defunctis, pro natalitiis 
" annua die facimus." The second is that, as is the case of St. 
Chrysostom, since you have chosen to produce the testimony of 
Tertullian to a matter of fact, you must allow me to claim 
him to be a witness above exception, where I produce him to 
prove the introduction of Christianity into Ireland previously 
to the year 200. 



64 

" to speak, propitiatory masses for the dead are men- 
" tioned." And in a note— " It is acknowledged by 
" Usher, that Requiem masses were among the re- 
" ligious practices of the Irish Christians in those 
" days ; but he denies that they were any thing more 
" than e an honorable commemoration of the dead, and 
" a sacrifice of thanksgiving for their salvation/ It 
" has been shewn clearly, however, that these masses 
" were meant to be also, in the strongest sense of the 
" word, propitiatory. In an old Irish missal, found at 
" Bobbio, of which an account has been given in the 
" Rev. Hibern. Script. (Ep. Nunc, cxxxviii.) there is 
" contained a mass for the dead, entitled, < Pro De- 
" functis ;' in which the following prayer, and others 
" no less Catholic, are to be found: — ' Concede pro- 
" pitiiis, ut haec sacra oblatio mortuis prosit ad veniam, 
" et vivis proficiat ad salutem.' " 

Upon this article I have much and most important 
matter to produce ; but, previously, I must disencum- 
ber it from a great deal that does not properly belong 
to the question, as it is at issue between us ; and 
disentangle it from some expressions which you call 
admissions of Archbishop Usher, and with which you 
have improperly interwoven it. 

And, in the first place, we must get rid of the " Old 
"- life of St. Brendan, who lived in the sixth century;'' 
because that this life was not only written long after 
the year 600, but is so replete with absurdities, that 
it would be insulting to your understanding, and quite 
lowering to our subject, to transcribe them. Its 
authority is at once put aside by the just censure of 



65 

Molanus, a learned Romanist, who declares, " that 
" there be many apocryphal fooleries in it.'' 

In the next place, we must disencumber ourselves 
of the tract of St. Cummian ; principally because he 
also is a late authority, having written it in the 
seventh century ; and likewise, because you have 
left us in doubt where to find that tract, in order to 
examine its contents ; and have not quoted its 
contents — besides all this, St. Cummianus, notwith- 
standing his celebrated epistle to Segienus, and in 
despite of " his talents and learning," which you so 
frequently allude to, was capable of swallowing and 
digesting many fooleries also — take the following 
specimen from the above mentioned letter — (Syl. p. 
3-i.) " Et nos, in reliquiis sanctorum martyrum, 
" et Scripturis quas attulerunt, probavimus inesse 
" virtutem Dei. Vidimus, oculis nostris, puellam 
" csecam omnino ad has reliquias oculos aperien- 
" tern, et paralyticum ambulantem, et multa de- 
u monia ejecta." " I myself saw a blind girl opening 
<; her eyes at the relics of holy martyrs !" &c. St. 
Cummian, therefore, proves too much, except for the 
disciples of Prince Hohenloe. 

And we must also disencumber the argument of 
the old Irish missal found at Bobbio ; you stats 
(p. 265) that that monastery was established there 
by St. Columbanus, shortly before the year 615 ; and 
in a note to the next page, you adduce the opinion 
of O'Connor, that this missal had " been brought 
" from Luxenil to Bobbio, by some followers of St. 
11 Columbanus, , ' in the seventh century, it is there- 

F 



66 

fore too modern for us ; and its authority also cannot 
properly be acquiesced in without some opportunity 
afforded us of examining the original passages and 
their contents. Add to this, that it is not a purely 
Irish authority, and that its authenticity has been 
matter of dispute. — See O'Connor Ep. Nunc. 

It is necessary, likewise, that I should explain the 
alleged admissions of Usher ; and as upon a former 
occasion, to restore his evidence to its fulness. I 
find that you have, with great injustice to his reason- 
ing, withheld the most important portion of his 
words, and some of them not even divided by a 
comma from those which you have thought proper to 
transcribe — they are as follows — " Whereby it 
" appeareth that an honourable commemoration of 
" the dead was herein intended, and a sacrifice of 
li thanksgiving for their salvation, rather than of pro- 
" pitiation for their sinnes.'' — You should not only 
have left this sentence entire ; but have also mentioned 
the occasion of Usher's thus expressing himself, and 
to which he refers by the word " Whereby." He 
introduces the paragraph thus — (Rel. of Ant. Ir. 
p. 27.) " And this is a thing very observable, in 
M the antienter lives of the Saints, (such I mean, as 
" have beene written before the time of Sathan's 
w loosing, beyond which wee doe not now looke ;) 
" that the prayers and oblations for the dead men- 
" tioned therein, are expressly noted to have been 
" made for them whose soules were supposed at the 
" same instant to have rested in blisse" — The 
very reverse of the requiem mass of modern days — 



67 

he then adduces some examples, and concludes with 
the words, " Whereby," &c, which you have chosen 
thus to abridge — I refer to his 28th and 29th pages for 
the rest of his argument, and shall return to the latter 
part of this again. 

And here it should be particularly stated, as ne- 
cessary to the full understanding of this subject, 
and for the reconciling of some of the apparent con- 
tradictions which involve it, that it has at all times 
been the practice of the Christian church to put up 
prayers — that the Lord would shortly accomplish the 
number of his elect, and hasten the time when he 
shall appear again in glory ; remove the curse from 
off this earth ; and complete the happiness of his 
redeemed. In these prayers the sainted dead are 
interested as well as others ; for, until that period 
arrive, their bodies shall lie mouldering in the grave ; 
and that state of perfect bliss be deferred, which 
consists in the reunion of the spirit, now in paradise, 
with their glorified bodies ; according to that hope of 
the believer, thus expressed by St. Paul, when he 
speaks of " the earnest expectation of the creature," 
that the " creature itself also shall be delivered from 
" the bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty 
" of the children of God" — and "we ourselves, 
" groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, 
" to wit, the redemption of our body" — (Rom. 
viii. 21.23.) — and also when he writes thus — (1 Cor. 
xv. 51) — "Behold ! I shew you a mystery — We 
" shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in 
" a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last 



68 



" trump — for the trumpet shall sound ; and the dead 
" shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall all be 
" changed. For this corruptible must put on incor- 
" ruption, and this mortal put on immortality.'* 
This it is which will form the consummation of God's 
all-glorious work of redemption ; fully completing 
the happiness of his people, and justifying his most 
righteous ways : and in it, as I have said, departed 
saints are clearly interested, and indeed, are particu- 
larly exhibited as being so in the book of Revelation 
(vi. 9.) — This consummation devoutly to be wished 
is, therefore, a legitimate subject for prayer, and was 
so in the primitive church ; and I am almost certain 
that some such meaning will be found properly to 
belong to the expressions of such writers as St. 
Chrysostom and St. Augustine, that are quoted and 
relied on as sanctioning prayer for the dead. I do find 
the following sentence, for instance, used by the former 
of these saints, in connection with the mention of 
similar prayers, and as defining their object — " ut et 
" ill! et nos promissa consequemur bona" — " that 
" both they and we may obtain the good things 
" promised ;" and if we look to that place which 
you have quoted from Tertullian, (Ed. Par. 1641, 
Lib. xv. 66) — we shall meet with a direction to 
widows to make annual oblation for their husbands ; 
and prayer that, among other things, they should 
have " in prima resurrectione consortium" — "a par- 
" taking together of the first resurrection. *' At all 
events, it will be impossible to find in any one of 
these fathers the slightest allusion to any thing 



69 

like a purgatorial fire. When the doctrines of 
a purgatory, and of prayer for the release of 
souls from the refining of a " purgatorial 
u fire," came to be artfully ingrafted on this stock, 
the entire grew wildly into error ; and some Protes- 
tants, too hasty in their anxious zeal for the purifying 
of the church from erroneous innovation, have, in 
pruning the branches, come too near to the root. For 
this reason it is that we hear so little of this interest- 
ing subject, until very lately, in our Protestant 
prayers ; save only in this beautiful one of the 
burial service of the Church of England — " Almighty 
" God, with whom do live the spirits of them that 
" depart hence in the Lord, and with whom the souls 
" of the faithful, after they are delivered from the 
" burden of the flesh, are in joy and felicity ; we 
" give thee hearty thanks for that it hath pleased thee 
" to deliver this our brother out of the miseries of 
" this sinful world ; beseeching thee, that it may 
" please thee, of thy gracious goodness, shortly to 
" accomplish the number of thine elect, and to hasten 
" thy kingdom ; that we, with all those who are 
" departed in the true faith of thy holy name, may 
u have our perfect consummation and bliss, both in 
" body and soul, in thy eternal and everlasting glory, 
" through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen." 

I shall now proceed to demonstrate, that St. Patrick 
and the early Irish Christians, so far from justifying 
" oblation for the dead," as the canon which you 
refer to is entitled, distinctly opposed it ; that they 
had no idea of any thing like a purgatory, or a " pur- 



70 

" gatorial fire •" and that those doctrines are neither 
primitive nor scriptural, in the way in which they are 
now taught in the Roman Catholic church. 

It is by no means agreeable to me to enter upon 
this part of the argument, in the manner which truth 
compels me to adopt ; but it is to be hoped, that you 
will be able to reconcile the conduct which, as an his- 
torian, you have here exhibited. You are, I presume, 
acquainted with the canons attributed to the synods 
of St. Patrick ; they are edited in his Opuscula ; 
transcribed into the Concilia of Spelman, and of 
Wilkins ; commented on by yourself, (p. 225 ;) and 
several of thern even quoted in your history. You 
should have read them all, occupying as they do but 
a very few pages ; and bearing most importantly 
upon the subject on which you were at once under- 
taking to inform the public, and arraigning of some- 
thing compounded of bigotry ignorance and folly, one 
whom you are compelled to consider as learned, and 
whom you feel it just to call admirable. What then 
will the candid and intelligent part of that public 
think of the fact, that the words of the canon thus 
quoted, whose title, which is all that you have pro- 
duced, appears to imply an acknowledgment of 
" Oblation for the dead," seems most unequivocally to 
oppose the doctrine ? The fact will appear from the 
document itself, which I shall transcribe in full ; 
I find that this title is referred to, independently of 
the canon itself, in O'Connor's first index to his Rer. 
Hiber. Script., p. 25S ; and the best apology I can 
suppose for you is, that finding it there, apparently 



71 

suited to your system, you gave into the tempta- 
tion, and took it upon conjecture, in order to save 
further research. The canon is as follows : — 
" Chapter xii. De oblatione pro defunctis." 
" Audi Apostolum dicentem — ' Est autem peccatum 
" ad mortem, non pro illo dico ut roget quis ;' et 
" Dominus — ' Nolite donare sanctum canibus ' — Qui 
" enim in vita suasacrificium* non merebitur accipere, 
" quomodo post mortem illi poterit adjuvare ?" 
" Of oblation for the dead." 
" Hear the apostle saying — i there is a sin unto 
" death, I do not say that one should pray for it ;' 
" and our Lord — « Give not that which is holy unto 
" dogs' — for he who in his lifetime does not deserve 
" to receive the sacrifice, how can it assist him after 
" death ?" 

But this is not the only circumstance in our existing 
remains of St. Patrick, to shew that he did not 
admit of the doctrine of purgatory ; there is among 
his works one upon the following subject — " De 
" tribus Habitaculis," " the three habitations ;" and, 
in describing these, he says — " There be three 
" habitations under the power of Almighty God ; 
" the first, the lowermost, and the middle : the 
" highest whereof is called the kingdom of God, or 
" the kingdom of the heavens ; the lowermost is 
" termed hell ; the middle is named the present 

* The meaning of the words " receiving the sacrifice," as 
used in these early days, has been already fully explained by 
a passage from Usher, transcribed under the next preceding 
head of doctrine. 



72 

" world."— And again — " In this world there is a 
" mixture of good and of bad ; but in the kingdom of 
" God none are bad, but all good ; but in hell 
" none are good, but all bad ; and either place is 
" supplied from the middle one." There is no men- 
tion of purgatory here, nor indeed in the entire 
tract, although its peculiar topic be the future con- 
dition of the soul ; and this silence on the subject, 
while it distinctly proves that he does not inculcate 
the doctrine, affords a strong implication that he had 
never even heard of it. There was nothing before him 
to suggest the thought of it to his mind ; for were it 
otherwise, he could not possibly, on such an occasion, 
have passed it by entirely unnoticed. I should make 
a similar remark upon another ancient canon, at- 
tributed to a synod of St. Patrick, although not 
so with any certainty, yet unquestionably of great 
antiquity. (See Us. Rel. &c. p. 24.) It speaks thus 
of the soul — " Neither can the archangel lead it to 
" life, until the Lord have judged it ; nor the devil 
" transport it to hell, until the Lord have condemned 
" it." I think that, had purgatory been a doctrine 
of those times, it could not have passed entirely 
unnoticed here. I would just add that St. Colum- 
banus, in spite of the missal of Bobbio, directs his 
disciples thus — (Syl. &c. p. 11.) 

" Vive Deo fidens, Christi praecepta sequendo, 

" Dummodo vita manet, dum tempora certa salutis." 

" Live believing in God, following the precepts of 



73 

" Christ, while life remains, while the times for obtain- 
" iny salvation are certain ;" which seems to me to 
exclude the idea of any such time after death, and 
in a purgatorial state : while the later Sedulius says, 
(in Rom. 7. and in 1 . Cor. 3 ; from Us. Rel. &c. p. 24—) 
that, at the end of life, " either death or life sue- 
" ceedeth ;" and " that, death is the gate by which 
" we enter into the kingdom." 

Claudius, whom I have mentioned before, has a 
very strong passage upon this subject. I do not, 
however, quote him on his own account, as you have 
not thought proper to mention him in your history, 
and, therefore, have not appeared to admit him as an 
authority ; but because he merely refers to the words 
of St. Jerome, one of the greatest and most ancient 
fathers of the Roman Catholic church ; and will 
therefore serve, fitly, to lead us from the considera- 
tion of this doctrine as holden by the early Irish 
Christians, to the views entertained of it by the rest of 
Christendom. He shews us the utter vanity of prayers 
for the releasing of souls out of purgatory, where he 
tells us, that, " While we are in this present world 
" we may assist each other by prayers, or by counsels; 
" but when we shall come before the tribunal of 
" Christ, neither Job, nor Daniel, nor Noah can 
" intreat for any one, but every one shall bear his 
" own burden." This sentence from St. Jerome is 
remarkably similar to one upon the same subject, 
which is used by St. Clement, third Pope of Rome, 
in his Second Epistle written to the Corinthians, c. 3. 



74 

After quoting the same text from Ezek. xiv., 14. &c. 
respecting Noah, Daniel and Job, he says — " Let us 
" therefore repent, whilst we are yet upon the earth ; 
" for as the potter, if he make a vessel, and it be 
" turned amiss in his hands, or broken, again forms 
" it anew ; but if he have gone so far as to throw it 
Ci into the furnace of fire, he can no more bring any 
" remedy of it ; so we, whilst we are in this world, 
" should repent, with our whole heart, for what- 
" soever we have done in the flesh, while we have 
" yet the time of repentance ; that we may be saved 
" by the Lord." There is no direct condemnation of 
purgatorial fire most certainly here, because the good 
pontiff, who lived about the year 100, had never 
heard of it ; but the sentiments are entirely incon- 
sistent with a belief in it, and substantially combat 
its absurdities. Remember that these sentiments are 
delivered by the head of that Church with which you 
argue the ancient Irish to have agreed ; and they prove, 
decidedly, that, old as the doctrine of prayer for 
the dead might be, and it must be old, for we find it 
in the Maccabees, (lib. II. c. 12,) that of purgatory 
is not by any means primitive. The former crept in 
gradually into the early church abroad, but it was 
not connected with the latter until of very late years. 
Fisher, a Roman Catholic, and Bishop of Rochester, 
(in confut. Luther. Art. 18,) confesses, that it was 
never or seldom mentioned by the ancient fathers ;* 

* I was very much surprised at these passages in Fisher's 
work — " Nemo certe jam dubitat orthodoxus an purgatorium 
" sit, de quo tamen apud priscos illos nulla, vel quam raro. 



he likewise admits, that there is not one text of 
Scripture that can force any man to believe in it — 
and, indeed, it must be acknowledged, that there are 
many which are of sufficient force to compel to the 
contrary faith. I shall select but a very few strong 
ones — Look to the expressions of Abraham, in the 
parable of Lazarus, Luke xvi, 22, 23, and 26 ; and 
the passage in John v. 24, " He that heareth my 
" word, and belie veth on him that sent me, hath 
" everlasting life, and shall not come into condemna- 
" tion, but is passed from death unto life." Look 
also to 1 Thess. iv. 14, and other places, for the state 
of all men at Christ's coming to judge the world — 
" them which sleep in Jesus shall God bring with 
" him," &c. And also to Rev. 14. 13.— " Blessed 
" are the dead which die in the Lord from hence. 
" forth ; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from 
" their labours." But without seeking for texts con- 
demning, in express terms, a doctrine which w r as not 
at the time invented ; or for others, besides those 
already quoted, implying tenets which are totally in- 
consistent with it, I would refer to the entire tenor 
of Scripture, to its full and free proclamation of 
unpurchased and unmerited mercy, and especially to 

" fiebat mentio ;" and the following — " Neque tarn necessaria 
" fuit, sive purgatorii, seu indulgentiarum fides, in prima 
" ecclesia atque nunc est." " Faith in a purgatory or in 
" indulgences was not so necessary in the primitive church, as 
"it is now;" and this because, as he tells us, there were 
better men. But surely the suffering of one soul only in a 
purgatorial fire would have induced the necessity of teaching 
those doctrines, if they were true ; the real fact however is, 
that they are thoroughly of human and modern invention. 



76 

that great and comprehensive truth, which so plainly 
declares it, and which quenches every spark of 
purgatorial fire. — " The blood of Jesus Christ 
" cleanseth from all sin." 1 John i. 7 ; and to the 
last and emphatic declaration of our Saviour from 
the cross, when he uttered the words — " It is finished." 

It might appear proper, from its name, to notice 
St. Patrick's purgatory in this place ; but it is obvious, 
from its nature, that the consideration of it should be 
reserved for the head of penance and of pilgrimages. 

The next that you mention is a very important 
doctrine indeed. " The habit," you say, " of 

a INVOKING, AND PRAYING TO SAINTS Was, it is 

" evident, general among the ancient Irish Christians ; 
" and a life of St. Brigid, written according to Ware 
" in the 7th century, concludes with the following 
" words : — ' There are two holy virgins in heaven, 
" who may undertake my protection, Mary and St. 
" Brigid, on whose patronage let each of us depend.' 
" See Lannigan Eccl. Hist. v. iii. c. 20, note 107." 

It appears to me, that one of the greatest evils 
likely to arise from the publication of your senti- 
ments on this subject, will follow from the confident 
manner in which you have treated it. The people of 
Ireland, while they are shrewd and inquisitive, are 
equally credulous and confiding ; they are also, in 
general, wherever they are not led completely blind- 
folded, anxious upon this matter ; and they are far 
from being ignorant of Archbishop Usher, and his 
opinions concerning it. When, therefore, they meet 
in their research with a history by one of your 



77 



popular and influential character, as a national poet, 
and a political supporter of their native predictions ; 
and perceive how you put away all his assertions as 
" little grounded in fact," with less than four pages 
of allegations ; in which almost every important 
doctrine of their religion is handled briefly, and dis- 
missed with little argument, and rather " ex cathe- 
"dra;" they will naturally be inclined to conclude, 
that there are stores of proof somewhere, too nu- 
merous to produce in detail, and of which, therefore, 
a specimen must suffice. Jt is to be expected that 
this thought will especially suggest itself to the 
acute Irishman's mind, when he reads your very 
jejune and insufficient paragraph upon this — the most 
important doctrine of his creed — involving the great 
accusations of idolatry itself, and of the direct breach 
of one of the commandments of Jehovah, that are 
brought against it. He will naturally reason thus 
within his mind: — "It cannot be because that this 
"part of the subject is of little consequence, that 
" Mr. Moore has treated it so very lightly and so 
" very briefly ; it cannot be that he despises the ar- 
" guments of Usher, and the Protestants, so fully 
" and boldly brought forward ; and surely such a 
" man cannot be indifferent to the truth itself ; it 
" must be that the matter was so convincingly proved 
" to him, that he thought it was quite unneces- 
" sary to trouble us with arguments respecting it ; 
"but that it would suffice to give us, who have 
" neither opportunity or leisure for research, his 
" own convictions on the subject." And he will 



78 



most probably add, that " indeed Mr. M. might as well 
u have spared such a specimen as he has exhibited 
" to us ; and left us to take the whole matter upon 
" trust, in the manner we are so well used to with 
" regard to questions of religion." 

Permit me. however, to take a very different view 
of the subject ; for in fact you have, in this the only 
argument, selected the best that you had — and what 
is that best ? the authority of a life of St. Brigid — a 
work of the seventh century, and of course no fit evi- 
dence in our cause — a work that, in the opinion of 
many, will carry its own character and condemnation 
in the sentence you have quoted. You have the follow- 
ing passage of your history, (p. 257.) — " By one of 
" those violations Gf chronology not unfrequently 
" hazarded, for the purpose of bringing extraordinary 
" personages together, an intimate friendship is sup- 
posed to have existed between her," (St. Brigid,) 
" and St. Patrick ; and she is even said to have woven, 
" at the Apostle's own request, the shroud in which 
" he was buried. But with this imagined intercourse 
" between the two saints, the dates of their respec- 
" tive lives are inconsistent ; and it is but just possible 
" that Brigid might have seen the great apostle of 
" her country, as she was a child of twelve years old 
6i when he died !" I presume that you speak here 
of the author on whom you above rely ; but, whether 
or not, I will reject the evidence of so late a period, 
and indeed I exclude all that I have read of St. 
Brigid, from the character of unexceptionable evi- 
dence — whosoever will examine that which is to be 



met with in the Florilegium of Messingham, will find 
that I am quite justified in doing so. 

This leaves, therefore, your assertion altogether 
destitute of proof ; hut not so our side of the ques- 
tion : and in support of it, I shall now once more 
call on your own witnesses, St. Patrick, and the second 
Sedulius. The 23d canon of the accredited synod of St. 
Patrick, already mentioned, declares thus — " Non 
" adjurandam esse creaturam aliam, nisi creatorem.'' — 
"No creature is to be adjured" (or invoked) "but 
" only the creator,*' and Sedulius, (in Rom. 1 and 2,) 
says — " Adorare alium, prseter Patrem, Filium, et 
" Spiritum sanctum, impietatis crimen est" — " To 
i ' pray to any other, beside the Father, Son, and 
" Holy Ghost, is the crime of impiety." Whether, 
therefore, it be evident that, " the habit of invoking 
" and praying to saints " was authorised by the 
ancient Irish church, or otherwise, I leave it to the 
public to determine. 

But there are some further testimonies on this sub- 
ject. The allegation of an agreement between the 
ancient British, or Welsh, and the Irish churches, 
has already been established by proof ; from the 
following description, therefore, of the horror ex- 
pressed by the former against the practices of the 
Romish Church, in the matter now before us, we 
may assuredly conclude, what were the opinions that 
were entertained by the early Irish Christians respect- 
ing it. A very ancient MS., preserved in Ben. Col. 
Cambridge, (cxlv. Art. 173) informs us thus — that the 
Britons lived in tolerable peace with the Saxons, while 



80 

these latter were heathens ; but, " after that, by the 
" means of Austin, the Saxons became Christians, in 
" such sort as Austin had taught them, the Bryttans 
" wold not, after that, nether eate nor drynke wyth 
" them ; because they corrupted, with superstition, 
" ymages, and ydolatrie, the true religion of Christ." 
There is nothing that will better exhibit the truth 
of the case, as it respects this " habit " of the 
primitive saints of Ireland, than an examination of 
the accredited works of St. Patrick ; they shew forth, 
in a most striking manner, the man of continual 
prayer — one hundred times a day — (a definite for an 
indefinite number,) did he address himself to his 
God — as he tells us in his confession (Opus. p. 6.) — 
before the dawn, in the snow, and frost, and rain, he 
ceased not, because his spirit burned within him ; yet, 
throughout all these works, thus replete with accounts 
of his prayers and intercessions, not one passage 
does any where occur, in which the least mention is 
made of invocation of the Virgin Mary, or of any 
created saint or being whatsoever. One would sup- 
pose, that in relating the dream which induced him to 
visit the west of Ireland, and to act as an instructor to 
its natives, an occasion would occur of noticing other 
mediators than the Lord Jesus Christ, or intercessors 
with him, had he ever imagined that there could be 
any such ; but no — neither here, nor elsewhere, is 
there the least allusion of the kind ; but be concludes 
the relation thus — " Dominus advocatus noster pos- 
" tulat pro nobis " — " the Lord our advocate prays 
" for us " — while he ends his confession in these 



81 

words — " Testificor, in veritate, coram Deo et Sanctis 
M angelis ejus," &c. " I witness, in truth, before 
" God and his holy angels," &c. I consider this 
silence to be much more than negative proof; for were 
he like a good modern Romanist, he could not have 
so slighted by uniform silence the Virgin and the 
saints ; and it is all the proof the subject can admit 
of, for he could not be expected to have condemned, 
in positive terms, a practice which had not as yet com- 
menced its existence in Ireland. Conformably with 
this is the following fact, which I give upon the autho- 
rityof the learned Spelman. (See his Cone. v. i. p. 218.) 
He tells us, that there was in his possession a Psalter, 
written about the year 754, shortly before the second 
council of Nice, which contains a prayer annexed to 
each of the psalms, and of the sections of the 119th, 
171 in all; yet not one of them is addressed to the 
Virgin Mary, the apostles, or any of the saints — but 
this document refers rather to the practice of the 
church in general at the time, and not merely the 
Irish portion of it. 

It has been a matter of surprise to me, that when, 
with so much decision and good sense, you have 
rejected the gross doctrine of transubstantiation, you 
could still give countenance to the far grosser one of 
idolatry, which " the invoking and praying to saints" 
undoubtedly is ; and I was still more surprised to 
find the Protestant condemnation of it put forward 
by you as heresy, where you are speaking, in your 
296th page, of Dungal's work, written A.D. 827, 
" in opposition," as you say, " to Claudius/' bishop of 



82 

Turin, " who reviving the heresy of Vigilantius 
" maintained, that saints ought not to be honoured, 
" nor any reverence paid to images ! The Irish 
" Doctor," you add, " contends zealously for the an- 
" dent Catholic practice /" And so must I contend, 
with equal zeal, for the yet more ancient Irish one 
condemning it; declaring, with St. Paul, (Acts 
xxiv. 14,) " But this I confess unto thee, that after 
" the way which they call heresy, so worship I the 
" God of my fathers, believing all things that are 
" written in the law, and the prophets" — and for the 
yet more ancient canon of that Law that was written 
with the finger of Jehovah, although now it is obli- 
terated from many of the authentic documents of 
your " ancient Catholic church" — " Thou shalt 

" NOT MAKE UNTO THEE ANY GRAVEN IMAGE 

" THOU SHALT NOT BOW DOWN THYSELF UNTO 

" them.'' You say, Sir, of this Irish Doctor, that 
instead of resorting to the aid of argument, on a point 
solely to be decided by " authority and tradition" 
" he appeals to the constant practice of the church 
" from the very earliest times." — Without delaying to 
exhibit the manifest error that this passage contains, 
I shall take up one part of it only connected with 
our subject ; and close my argument upon the head 
now under our consideration, by shewing, that the 
practice of the early church out of Ireland, as well as 
of that portion of it that existed in this island, was 
not such as you have there declared it to be. 

" Turn irascitur angelus," says St. Augustine, 
(in Ps. 95) " quando ipsum colere volneris." — "An 



83 

" angel is offended, when you desire to worship him fc" 
and so, of course, would St. Augustine, were you to 
invoke him. We find the use of images condemned 
by the unanimous decree of 338 bishops, assembled 
in the general council at Constantinople, A.D. 754; 
and it w r as not authorised until it was permitted by a 
canon passed in the second council of Nice, A.D. 
787. This latter canon continued still to be resisted 
in England ; and was rejected by the council of 
Frankfort, holden A.D. 794, at which our celebrated 
countryman, Alcuinus, the friend and preceptor of 
Charlemagne, was present. (See canon 2.) It is 
entirely without allowance from Scripture, which, on 
the contrary, abounds with awful passages denouncing 
it. It is needless, however, to go beyond the second 
commandment. With reference to the extravagant 
honour now paid to the Virgin, there is a remarkable 
passage in Luke xi. 27, where our Lord,, in answer 
to the premature instance of it there exhibited, by the 
woman who exclaimed — " Blessed is the womb that 
" bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked" — 
checks her with prophetical caution thus — " Yea, 
" rather blessed are they that hear the word of the 
" Lord, and keep it." To conclude with one text, 
which is as it were instar omnium, and which there- 
fore prevents the necessity of adducing more; we find 
it thus written in 1 Timothy ii. 5, " There is one 
" God, and one Mediator between God and man, the 
" man Christ Jesus:" and that we need no intercessor 
is plain from this, among many such passages in the 
Bible, containing his invitations, his miracles, indeed 



all his history — " For we have not an high priest 
" which cannot be touched with the feelings of our 
" infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we 
" are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly 
" to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, 
" and find grace to help in the time of need." Heb. 
iv. 15 and 16. 

The next subject that you bring forward is thus 
introduced. — " The penitential discipline established 
" in their monasteries was of the most severe descrip- 
" tion. The weekly fast days observed by the whole 
" Irish church were, according to the practice of the 
" primitive times, Wednesdays and Fridays ; and the 
" abstinence of the monks, and of the more pious 
" among the laity, was carried to an extreme unknown 
" in later days. The benefit of pilgrimages was also 
" inculcated; and we find mention occasionally, in 
" the Annals, of princes dying in pilgrimage" — and 
you add in a note — " See Tigernach, A.D. 610, and 
" also 723. In the Annals of the Four Masters, 
" A.D. 777, the pilgrimage of a son of the king of 
" Connaught, to the island of Hyona, is recorded." 

Mr. Locke says, that much of the difference of 
opinion that exists between disputants would be 
avoided, if they were to commence their arguments by 
a definition of the terms which they employ. I am 
sure that such a method would assist in arriving 
sooner at the truth ; but I am not so certain that it 
would always equally lead to the mutual agreement of 
the adverse parties. In our case I fear that it would 
not conduce to that end ; for while, vaguely using the 



85 

terms penitential discipline and abstinence, you seem 
to propose what is reasonable, when you bring these 
words into contact with the doctrines and practices of 
the modern Roman Catholic church, which I cannot 
admit to be either scriptural in themselves, or autho- 
rised by the teaching or example of our primitive saints, 
your proposition becomes altogether inadmissible. 

I do admit that penitential discipline, fasts, and 
abstinence did exist, not only among the early Irish, 
but among all the primitive Christians ; but I entirely 
deny that they held l he sacrament of penance, or the 
merit of these exercises, as taught in the modern Roman 
Catholic church. But before I proceed I must, in the 
first place, remark, that what you have here advanced 
upon the first head of this subject, rests exclusively 
upon assertion without argument. In the second place, 
that, were that which you have alleged of weekly 
fast days, &c. true to its full extent, it refers only 
to usages commenced after the year 600, and are not 
therefore to be brought forward as the practice of 
the primitive times. And thirdly, this very extreme 
of abstinence which you so much glory in, is the 
precise point of great difference, which is mentioned 
to have marked the growing degeneracy of the Irish 
saints, where the three orders already alluded to are 
spoken of. — The third and latest of these is called merely 
holy, and is said to have shone but as stars ; having 
fallen off from the characters of holiest and holier, 
and gradually lessened in brilliancy from the splendor 
of the sun and of the moon ; and they are at the 
same time described, by their having been peculiarly 



86 

ascetic ; and to have lived " a peu pres a la maniere 
" des moines de La Trappe." — (M'Geogbegan, Hist. 
DTrelande, v. 1.321.) Whether or not this absti- 
nence of theirs " was carried to an extreme unknown 
" in later days," we shall soon have an opportunity 
of better judging, as an offset of the Monks of 
La Trappe has just been planted and cherished in 
this ill-fated country. 

But taking the rule of Columbanus, " the moral 
" instructions written for his monks," (p. 267) to 
which you have referred, I shall abstract from them 
his directions on this subject ; and then your readers, 
comparing them with the modern fastings of Roman- 
ism, may perceive how far they differ from each other. 
It ordains (c. 5.) not merely on Wednesdays and 
Fridays, but on " every day to fast, and every day 
" to eat ;" " because this is true discretion, that the 
" power of spiritual proficiency might be retained by 
" abstinence." — Again, " Let the food of the monks be 
" mean, flying satiety and excess of drink, that it 
" may both sustain, and not hurt them." — And once 
more, c. 8. — " It profiteth them little if they were 
" virgins in body, and not virgins in mind." And 
Claudius, whom I formerly brought forward as quoting 
St. Jerome, may again be admitted to give testimony 
here, as he gives it in the words of the celebrated 
St. Augustine — " The children of wisdom," he says, 
" understand, that neither in abstaining nor in eating 
" is there any virtue ; but in contentedness in bearing 
" the want, and temperance of not corrupting a man's 
" self by abundance." 



87 

It is clear from these, that the use of fasting among 
our ancestors was to prepare and humble the mind, 
through the subjection of the desires of the body ; 
and that it did not in the least degree partake of its 
modern character in the Roman Catholic church, a 
human merit, degrading by its mixture the great 
work of atonement. But it was not indeed very long, 
before the enormous abuse of this practice led to its 
censure first, and then to its too great neglect among 
holy men. The author of " The Life of St. Teresa" — 
(See Florilegium, p. 395) — speaks of persons, " who, 
" being assaulted with spiritual vices, w r hich they 
" neglect, afflict their body with abstinence ; thinking 
" nothing of pride which expelled the angels from 
u heaven," &c. — and Gildas says — (See Spelman's 
Concilia, v. 1, p. 55.) — " The abstinence from bodily 
" food without charity is useless ; they are, therefore, 
" the better men, who do not fast much, nor extra va- 
" gantly abstain from the creatures of God, but care- 
u fully keep their heart within pure before God, from 
" whence they know cometh the issues of life ; than 
" they who eat no flesh, nor delight in secular food, 
" nor are borne in carriages or by horses, and think 
" themselves hereby to be as it were superior to 
" others ; upon whom death hath entered through the 
" windows of pride." This writer of the sixth cen- 
tury seems to have well understood these words of 
the prophet — " Is this such a fast, saith the Lord, as 
" I have chosen, for a man to afflict his soul for a 
" day ? — Is not this rather the fast I have chosen ? 



88 

" Loose the bands of wickedness. — Is it not to deal 
" thy bread to the hungry," &c., " and that thou 
ci hide not thyself from thine own flesh ?" — (Isaiah 
lviii. 4 and 5, Douay version.) 

Your instances of pilgrimages shall not delay me 
long — they are all of a date too late to shew the 
practice to be primitive ; I could indeed add to them 
many more of a similar character. I presume that 
you have given us the earliest you can find, and 
therefore it is not to be expected that I should 
afford more ancient examples, especially as I believe 
none such to exist. This is not a place in which to 
shew forth the folly and the evil of these practices ; I 
shall only say, that it had been better to have with- 
held the approbation you have given to them, and 
the encouragement you have afforded them, by 
speaking of them as inducing benefit — benefit ! ! f 
Oh ! sir, had you ever read an account of the 
wickedness and the idleness connected with a pilgri- 
mage to Patrick's purgatory, you never could have 
advocated H the benefit of pilgrimages " in Ireland ; 
and had you inquired into the history of this place of 
absurdity and abomination, you would have found a 
Pope so impressed with a sense of both, as to endea- 
vour to put a stop to the practice. You will find the 
following fact recorded in the Ulster Annals — * A.D. 
" 1497, the cave of St. Patrick's purgatory, in 
" Lough Derg, was demolished in that year, on St. 
" Patrick's day, by the Guardian of Donegal, and 
" some persons in the Deanery of Lough Erne, 



89 

" deputed by the bishop, by authority of the Pope.*" 
I think it right to state here, by the way, that this 
place had no connection at all with St. Patrick, 
although it bears his name, and is not even mentioned 
by any of the early writers of his life, nor yet by 
Jocelin, who flourished in the year 1183; the first 
notice of it that occurs is by Henry, a monk of 
Saltry, in the year 1153. I presume that you 
believe this to be true, and that you do not rest any 
thing upon the legends connected with this place ; 
but having been led to mention it, I thought it proper 
to state these facts, in order to disconnect it the more 
entirely from St. Patrick, and his far different 
teachings and establishments. 

Penitential discipline, as descriptive of what is 
termed the sacrament of penance, will be better con- 
sidered under the next head, which you notice thus — 
<; The practice of auricular confession, and their 
" belief in the power of the priest to absolve from 
" sin, is proved by the old penitential canons, and 
" by innumerable passages in the lives of their 
" saints.'' And you remark, in a note — " On this point 
" Usher acknowledges that they did, (no doubt,) 
" both publicly and privately make confession of their 
" faults ;" (chap. 5,) and adds in proof of this fact 
" what follows — ' One old penitential canon we find 
" laid down in a synod held in this country about the 
" year of our Lord 450, by St. Patrick, Auxilius, and 

* I quote from " Richardson's Folly of Pilgrimages," p. 
43, &c. ; this latter part of " The Ulster Annals" has not 
been given by O'Conor. 



90 

" Isserninus, which is as folio weth— < A Christian 
" who hath killed a man, or committed fornication, 
" or gone unto a soothsayer after the manner of the 
" Gentiles, for every of those crimes shall do a year 
" of penance; when his year of penance is accom- 
" plished he shall come with witnesses, and after- 
" wards he shall be absolved by the priest/ Usher 
" contends, however, for their having in so far 
" differed from the belief of the present Catholics, 
" that they did not attribute to the priest any more 
" than a ministerial power in the remission of sins." 

Whatever is important here may be examined in 
connection with this note, which contains the peni- 
tential canon alluded to. Besides that we have had 
enough of " The Lives of the Saints," they are of 
no importance to us in this place, because of their 
date ; and it is quite impossible to follow them up 
with any research, on account of the very general 
manner in which you have quoted them. 

Your alleged acknowledgment by Usher requires, 
as in other instances of his admissions brought forward 
by you, to be set out at length, in order that its true 
nature may fully appear. You have coupled his 
admission with the old penitential canon, but you 
have entirely withheld his opening out of the true 
ancient meanings attached to confessions, to penances, 
and to absolutions. I cannot better remedy this evil, 
or correct this error or mis-statement, than by 
transcribing, from the chapter which you have 
referred to, the entire of what he has written upon 
the subject ; observing only, that as it embodies a 



91 

reference to our mutually acknowledged authorities, 
I shall, by transcribing- from him, give also what 
they allege, and thus be saved the necessity of 
intruding on your time by a separate reference to 
each of them. 

His words are these — "Upon speciall occasions 
" they did, no doubt, both publicly and pri- 
" vately make confession of their faults ; as well 
" that they might receive counsailes and direction for 
" their recovery, as that they might bee made par- 
" takers of the benefit of the keys, for the quieting 
" of their troubled consciences." I shall refer to 
the original for some instances given in this place, in 
order that I may not unnecessarily encumber this 
extract — " Now the eounsell," he thus proceeds, 
" commonly given unto the penitent after confession 
" was, that he should wipe away his sinnes by meet 
" fruits of repentance — (Confessa dignis pjeniten- 
" TiiE* fructibus abstergerent' — Bed. Ec. Hist. lib. 
" 4. c. 27,) which course, Bede observeth, to have 
" been usually prescribed by our Cuthbert. For 

* penances were then exacted, as testimonies of the sin- 
" cerity of that inward repentance, which was 

* necessarily required for obtaining remission of the 
" sinne ; and so had reference to the taking away the 

* I might well have questioned the propriety of the use of 
the word penance as a translation of the word pcenitentia, in 
every place in which it occurs throughout this argument ; and 
it should be remembered that all the writers from whom we 
quote wrote in Latin; but I shall not encumber the discussion 
with this worn-out matter, but acquiesce the rather in the 
use of the term penance, as Usher has done so in his arguments, 



92 

" guilt, and not of the temporall punishment 
" remaining after the forgivenesse of the guilt, which 
" is the new formed use of penances invented 
" by our later Romanists." He then produces the 
example of the old penitential canon, in the words 
which you have correctly and fully quoted, and pro- 
ceeds thus: — "These Bishops did take order, (we 
" see,) according to the discipline generally used in 
" those times, that the penance should first be per- 
" formed, and when long and good proofe had bin 
" given, by that means, of the truth of the parties re- 
" pentance, they wished the priest to impart unto 
" him the benefit of absolution ; whereas, by the new 
" device of sacramental penance, the matter is now 
" far more easily transacted : by virtue of the keyes 
" the sinner is instantly of attrite made contrite, and 
" thereupon, as soon as hee hath made his confession, 
" he presently receiveth his absolution : after this 
" some sorry penance is imposed, which, upon 
" better consideration, may bee converted into pence, 
" and so a quicke end is made of many a foule 
" businesse. 

" But for the right use of the keys, wee fully accord 
" with Claudius : that the office of remitting and re- 
" taining sinnes, which was given to the apostles, ' is 
" now, in the bishops and priests, committed unto 
" every church ; namely, that having taken know- 
" ledge of the causes of such as have sinned, as many 
" as they shall behold humble and truly penitent, 
" those they may now with compassion absolve from 
" the feare of everlasting death ; but such as they 



93 

" discerne to persist in the sins which they have com- 
" mitted, those they may declare to he hound over to 
" everlasting punishments.' And, in thus absolving 
u such as be truly penitent, we willingly yeeld, that 
" the pastors of God's church doe remit sinnes after 
" their manner, that is to say, ministerially and im- 
" properly ; so that the priviledge of forgiving sinnes 
" properly and absolutely, be still unto God alone. 
< J Which is at large set out by the same Claudius ; 
" when he expoundeth the historie of the man sicke 
" of the palsey, that was cured by our Saviour in the 
" 9th of St. Matthew. For, following Bede, upon 
" that place he writeth thus — i The scribes say true, 
" that none can forgive sinnes but God alone ; who 
" also forgiveth by them to whom hee hath given 
" the power of forgiving.' " 

It is clear, therefore, that in the setting forth of 
this matter, which rests indeed chiefly in the proper 
explanation of terms, you have not either done justice 
to Usher, or to the subject itself. There is a vast 
difference, surely, between penance as " a sacrament/' 
by which " we receive forgiveness of those sins com- 
" mitted after baptism," (Catec. R. C. pa. 5 C 2;) and 
by the performance of whicb " we satisfy God ;" and 
between auricular or sacramental confession made to 
the priest alone — all doctrines of the modern Romisb 
church — and the penitential discipline enjoined by the 
old Irish canon ; the " coram omnibus qui ibidem 
" erantpeccata sua confessus est" — " he confessed his 
" sins before all that were present," — mentioned in 
Adamnan's Life of St. Columbkille, (lib. i. c. 16;) 



94 

and the declaration of the sinner's absolution there 
also recorded — " Rise up, son, and be comforted ; thy 
" sins which thou hast committed are forgiven ; be- 
" cause, as it is written, a contrite and humbled heart 
" God doth not despise." 

Two unquestionable authorities still remain to 
demonstrate, that not only the Roman Catholic use of 
confession, but other doctrines upon which you have 
not touched, were unknown to, or else quite neglected 
by, the Irish church, even so late as the year 1140, 
about which time St. Malachy was Archbishop of 
Armagh — St. Bernard, in his life of that prelate, (c. 6.) 
distinctly asserts this fact. The other is to be found 
among the Letters of Alcuinus, (Ep. 71, edit. Quer- 
citani.) This learned Irishman, and friend of Char- 
lemagne, addressing the churches of the Scots — 
(certainly some read it, of the Goths) — gives to both 
clergy and laity great praise ; notwithstanding certain 
customs which were practised by them, to wit, that 
none of the laity were willing to make confession to 
the priests — st Neminem ex laicis velle confessionem 
" sacerdotibus dare." 

But upon this subject, penance, as upon that of 
pilgrimages, I have again to lament, that by the 
stamp of approbation which you have thoughtlessly 
put upon the practice of penances in Ireland, you con- 
duce, as far as your influence lies, to do injury which it 
is not in the power of your talents to repair. If, as I 
have said before, you had ever witnessed, if you had 
ever read of, if you had reflected on, the degradations 
of the human intellect, the perversions of the human 



95 

feelings, the tortures of the human frame, exhibited 
annually in the case of thousands, in their penances 
performed at Lough Derg, Croagh Patrick, and nu- 
merous other places every where in Ireland, you 
would not, I trust, have chimed in with the continu- 
ance of such follies and impieties ; hut rather have 
joined with the better disposed of the Roman Catholic 
Church, to endeavour to banish them from the island 
altogether. And, Sir, had you known — but you must 
know it — had you, therefore, reflected on, or pro- 
perly cared for, the perpetual and tyrannical bondage 
in which the modern abuse of the wholesome ancient 
doctrines of penitential discipline, confession, and 
absolution, holds the bodies, and the souls, and the 
purses of your poor, ignorant, fellow-countrymen, 
you would have bent all your energies to rouse 
them to break off their spiritual fetters, and not have 
laboured thus to rivet them more firmly. 

The doctrines here considered are so interwoven 
with those of human merits and works, self-sacrifices, 
and such like, that I feel^it would lead to endless 
enlargement on the subject, were I to enter into a 
full consideration of their antiquity, or their connection 
with the precepts of the Bible. I shall, therefore, 
refer but to two or three clear texts, which are quite 
sufficient to settle all difference of opinion on these 
points. It is thus declared of his people by the Lord, 
(Heb. x. 17 and 18) — " Their sins and iniquities will 
M I remember no more. Now, where remission of sins 
" is, there is no more offering for sin." And let the 
Romanist ponder well what St. Peter himself has 



96 

written for our consideration — " Ye know that ye 
" were not redeemed with corruptible things, as 
" silver and gold, but with the precious blood of 
" Christ, as of a lamb without blemish or without 
« spot.'— 1 Pet. i. 18 and 19. We find the follow- 
ing striking passage, also, in the book of the Prophet 
Micah, (vi. 6, &c.) — " Wherewith shall I come before 
" the Lord, and bow myself before the high God ? 
" Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, with 
" calves of a year old ? Will the Lord be pleased 
" with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of 
" rivers of oil ? Shall I give my first-born for my 
" transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of 
" my soul ? He hath shewed thee oh man! what 
" is good ; and what doth the Lord require of thee, 
" but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk 
" humbly with thy God?" Of the doctrine of auri- 
cular confession, I may add, that it was not com- 
manded until the 21st canon of the Council of Lateran 
ordained it, A.D. 1215. The previous practice will 
appear from Lombard's Sentences, lib. iv. c. 17 ; T. 
Aquinas on that passage, and Gratian, de pcen. dist. 1. 
c. 89. 

The next subject presents to us no difficulty, and 
suggests but a few remarks. The truth of Usher's 
assertions is conceded, although very reluctantly, in 
the following words — " The only point indeed, 
" either of doctrine or discipline — and under this 
" latter head alone the exception falls — in which the 
" least difference of any moment can be detected, 
" between the religion professed by the first Irish 



97 

" Christians, and that of the Catholics of the present 
" day, is with respect to the marriage of the clergy ; 
" which, as appears from the same sources of evi- 
" dence that have afforded all the other proofs was, 
" though certainly not approved of, yet permitted 
" and practised. Besides a number of incidental 
" proofs of this fact, the sixth canon of the 
" synod of St. Patrick enjoins that — the clerk's 
" wife shall not walk out without having her 
" head veiled." Your note here adds — " If the term 
" clerk here be understood to comprise all the mem- 
" bers of the clerical orders, the permission to marry 
" extended also to priests ; but, it is thought by 
" some, that the words of the canon apply only to 
" the inferior ranks of the clergy. With respect to 
" our English church, (says Dr. Milner,) at the end 
" of the sixth century we gather from St. Gregory's 
" permission for the clerks in minor orders to take 
" wives, that this was unlawful for the clergy in holy 
" orders ; namely, for bishops, priests, and deacons, 
" agreably to a well-known rule of reasoning— 
" ' Exceptio probat regulam ;' and we are justified in 
" inferring the same with respect to the Irish clergy 
" in St. Patrick's time. Inquiry into certain vulgar 
" opinions, &c, Letter 14." 

I am afraid, my dear sir, that your readers will 
imagine, from your method of concession in these 
passages, if they be not convinced of it already, that 
you are writing under the influence of much prejudice, 
and altogether determined to support a system; as you 
would otherwise have probably granted more fully 



98 

what you cannot deny, and have spared also those 
sidewinds which bear indirectly upon your general 
object. Insinuation indeed is no argument, it is well 
if it be truth. The only point you say — Have you 
forgotten Easter, and the tonsure, and the three chapters, 
in your own history? (p. 283,) and, if you consider 
these and others to be of a nature too trifling, although 
they were far otherwise considered by the ancient 
Irish themselves, on what possible authority do you 
pronounce the marriage of the clergy to be " certainly 
" not approved of," although " permitted and prac- 
" tised ?" but principally, why do you neutralise the 
whole concession by the observation — " it is thought 
" by some that the words of the canon apply only 
" to the inferior ranks of the clergy ?" and what is 
the instance given of these some ? Dr. Milner — 
who, writing of the English Church, conjectures, 
from a pope's permission for clerks in minor orders 
to take wives, that it was unlawful for bishops, 
priests, and deacons to do so ; and then, upon this 
conjecture, again conjectures that it was also so in 
Ireland. This is really the elephant bearing the 
world, and the tortoise the elephant ; but I proceed 
to demonstrate that this fact was far otherwise. 

And first. — The words of the canon itself declare 
it, they are as follows — " Quicunque Clericus* ab 
" hostiario usque ad sacerdotem, sine tunica 
" visus fuerit, &c. Et si non more Romano capilli 
" ejus tonsi sint, et uxor ejus si non velato capite 
" ambulaverit, pariter a laicis contemnentur, et ab 
" Ecclesia separentur." " Whatsoever clerk, from 



99 

" the door-keeper to the priest, shall he seen without 
; ' his tunic, &c. ; and if his hair be not shorn after 
11 the Roman manner, and his wife shall walk out 
" without having her head veiled, let them both be 
" shunned by the laity, and separated from the 
" Church." — I shall here first observe, that this canon 
gives no authority for the translation into " the clerk,'' 
with the article ; which cannot but convey at once to 
the mind of the reader, perhaps almost unconsciously, 
the idea of the inferior person usually known by the 
name : in the next place, as the Roman mode of 
tonsure is enjoined, the canon is certainly favourable 
to the practices of that see ; and, therefore, this allow- 
ance by it of marriage to the clergy, comes with the 
greater power as a testimony : and, thirdly, that we 
are not to infer — as Dr. Milne* would perhaps here 
also contend — from the silence of the canon respecting 
the wives of those who are of the order of bishops, 
and because that " exceptio probat regulam,"' that 
they were not allowed to have wives, for I shall now 
prove the contrary by undeniable truths. 

It is a curious and convincing fact, that, even so 
late as the 10th, 11th, and 12th centuries, in the 
very see of Armagh, " the primacy passed to the 
" chief of the sept, as a kind of inheritance, for 
" fifteen generations," (Bernard's Life of Malachy, 
c. vii. and Harris Ware, p. 49 and ok) — Thus 
Amalgaid, who was primate in the year 1021, was 
father to two bishops of that see. Celsus, bishop of 
Armagh, who died A.D. 1129, was a married man, 
(see a MS. T.C.D. C. I. 26,) where it is said, that his 



100 

marriage was " more gentis sua- ;" the eight primates 
who preceded him were also married.— (Bernard, ub. 
sup.) This custom of succeeding by inheritance 
gave rise in our island to the species of property 
known by the names of Corbes, Herenachs, and 
Termoners ; (see Usher's tract on these, Val. Col. i. p. 
192,) and at length this abuse became so offensive to 
the pope, Innocent III., that he wrote letters to John 

Sacernitanus, his legate in Ireland, A.D. 1104 

" Monens, inter coetera, ut eum in Hibernia abusum 
" tollat, quo filii et nepotes patribus et avis in bene- 
" ficiis succedebant" — (Vit. and gest. Pontif, Ciaconii, 
Rom. 1601, p. 515) — "that he should abolish that 
(i bad usage in Ireland, by which sons and grandsons 
" succeeded to the benefices of their fathers and 
" grandfathers." " So constant," as you remark, 
(p. 285,) " did the Irish remain to one line of 
" descent, as well in their abbots as their kings." 

So much, Sir, for the conjectures of Dr. Milner, 
and the insinuations so diffidently hung upon them 
by yourself. I cannot omit the interesting fact, that 
St. Patrick was, by his own confession, and the ac- 
counts of his contemporaries, the son of Calphurnius, 
a deacon, and his grandfather Potitus was a priest. 
The assertion is somewhere made, but not on any au- 
thority, that they were neither of them ordained until 
after their respective marriages ; however, as this is 
possible, and cannot be disproved, I shall wave the 
use of this powerful authority upon the subject. I 
shall not unnecessarily enlarge upon this head, so as 
to inquire into the practice of the rest of the Christian 



101 

world. The celibacy of the clergy was confessedly 
introduced of late years ; and certainly could not have 
been within the contemplation of St. Paul, when he 
wrote his epistles to Timothy and to Titus. — " A 
u bishop must then be blameless, the husband of one 
" wife/* &c. — (See 1st Tim. iii, 2 ; and also, v. 12, for 
deacons ; and Tit. i. 6, for elders.) 

One point alone remains, and upon it you express 
yourself thus : — " The evidence which Usher has ad- 
u duced to prove that communion in both kinds was 
" permitted to the laity among the Irish, is by no 
" means conclusive, or satisfactory — though it would 
ie certainly appear, from one of the canons of the pe- 
" nitential of St. Columbanus, that, before the intro- 
" duction of this rule, novices had been admitted to 
" the cup. It is to be remembered, however, that 
" any difference of practice, in this respect, has always 
" been considered as a mere point of discipline, and 
" accordingly subject to such alteration, as the change 
" of time and circumstances may require." You add, 
in a note respecting Archbishop Usher — " He founds 
u his conclusion chiefly on their use of such phrases 
" as, 'the communion of the Lord's body and blood,' 
" whereas the Catholics of the present day, among 
" whom the laity receive the sacrament under one 
" kind only, use the very same language" — and there 
is another note respecting the canon of St. Colum- 
banus, which is in these words, " Col. in Poenit. as 
" I find it thus cited by Cellier, ' Novi quia indocti, et 
" quicunque tales fuerint, ad calicem non accedant.' " 

I trust that it will not be thought that I also have 



102 

my system to sustain, and that for that reason only 
seem determined to find fault with whatsoever you 
have said upon every point. I feel conscious that it is 
not for that reason that I do so ; and, if truth require 
that I should present this very combative appearance, 
the blame of it must rest with him who has given the 
occasion. On this head I am bound, in order to jus- 
tify the argument of Usher, in support of what was 
the fact respecting communion of both kinds by 
the laity, to add some further testimony to his ; and to 
make some observations, especially on your conclud- 
ing remarks. But, first, I must point out an important 
concession made by you here, as it relates to the 
practice of our very first and holiest Christians — let 
us remember that, at the earliest, the rule of St. Co- 
lumbanus must be limited to the year 600 ; and, if 
" before this rule, novices had been admitted to the 
" cup," which you acknowledge appears to have been 
the case, the practice of excluding them could not 
have been primitive, but must have been an innovation 
on the usage of at least the holier and holiest orders. 

Whether or not the evidence adduced by Usher on 
this subject, be " by no means conclusive or satisfac- 
" tory," or whether it be chiefly the use of such 
phrases as " the communion of the Lord's body and 
Ci blood," on which he forms his conclusion, and not 
something more home to the point, will appear from 
the following transcript of some of his words. I 
shall confine myself to those which relate to Ireland. 
" Cogitosus," he says, " writeth in the life of St. 
" Brigid, touching the place in the church of Kildare, 



103 

u whereunto the Abbatesse, with her maidens and 
" widowes used to resort, « that they might enjoy the 
" banquet of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, 
" ut convivio corporis et sanguinis fruantur Jesu 
" Christi ;) which was agreeable to the practice," 
(Usher asserts,) " not only of the nunneries founded 
" beyond the seas, according to the rule of Colum- 
" banus, where the virgins ' received the body of the 
" Lord, and sipped his blood, (as appeareth by that 
" which Ionas relateth of Domna, the life of Burgun- 
" dofora,) — 'quaedam ex his nomine Domna, cum jam 
" corpus Domini accepisset, ac sanguinem libasset' — 
" but also of St. Brigid herselfe, who was the 
u foundresse of the monasterie of Kildare — one of 
" whose miracles is reported, even in the later legends, 
" to have happened, when shee was about to drinke 
" out of the chalice, at the time of her receiving of 
" the eucharist; which they that list to looke after, 
" may find in the collections of Capgrave, Surius, 
" and such like." Again, are you justified in your 
note, in saying of Usher, that " he founds his conclu- 
" sion chiefly on their use of such phrases as the com- 
" munion of the Lord's body and blood," and thus 
presenting him as relying on the use merely of a 
dubious phrase ? when the very sentence which I pre- 
sume you refer to, which occurs in his Religion of 
the Ancient Irish, p. 38, proceeds thus, quoting from 
Bede's Life of St. Cuthbert : — 

" Pocula degustat vitse, Christique supinum 
" Sanguine munit iter — 

" lest any man should thinke, that under the formes 



104< 

6i of bread alone, he might be said to have been par- 
" taker of the body and blood of the Lord, by way of 
" concomitance." These, certainly, are not such 
phrases as you would confine Usher to have used— 
whether they be conclusive testimony or not, is 
another question ; in my mind they exhibit the very 
best evidence to rebut your assertions. 

A very strong testimony of this continuing to be 
the practice of the English and Irish churches, even 
down to the year 1081, occurs in the Sylloge so often 
referred to ; we there find, (p. 73,) Lanfranc, Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, writing thus to an Irish 
Bishop — " Credimus enim generaliter omnes omni- 
" bus cetatibus, plurimum expedire, tarn viventes 
" quam morientes, Dominici corporis et sanguinis 
" sese munire" — " For we believe in general, that it 
" is most proper for all of every age, whether living 
" or dying, to strengthen themselves with the body 
" and blood of the Lord." The pope Gelasius, indeed, 
about the year 476, declared, " that the Eucharist 
" could not without sacrilege be received in one kind 
" only;" (Apud Gratian de consecrat. dist. 2, c. 12) — 
" quia divisio unius ejusdemque mysterii sine grandi 
",sacrilegio non potest provenire" — and the very 
words of the council of Constance, whose ordinance 
first, in the year 1415, forbade the cup to the people, 
acknowledge the primitive custom to be such as I 
contend for, (sess. 13) — they are as follows : " Licet 
" in primitiva ecclesia hujusmodi sacramentum reci- 
" peretur a fideiibus sub utraque specie, &c." — 
" Although in the primitive church this sacrament 



105 

" was received by the faithful under both kinds ; yet, 
" from henceforth, it shall be given in one kind only 
" to the lay people." Now, to those at least who 
hold the infallibility of general councils, this settles 
the point ; and I am inclined to think that you were 
partly under the influence of some such irresistible 
evidence, which almost persuaded you to acknowledge 
that we are in the right, as your concluding paragraph 
exhibits very much the air of the offer of a compro- 
mise upon the subject. " It is to be remembered, 
" however," you say, " that any difference of practice 
" in this respect, has been always considered as a 
" mere point of discipline ; and accordingly subject to 
" such alteration as the change of time and circum- 
" stances may require." I am sorry thus to urge my 
contest with you to the very last ; and to enter my 
protest against this your greatest error of all — the 
matter now under inquiry is by no means a " mere 
" point of discipline," however it may appear so to 
modern Roman Catholics ; but one of essential and 
primary importance. To those who can persuade 
themselves that the consecrated wafer contains, really 
and substantially, the living body of Christ, warmed 
by his living blood, it may in one point of view be of 
little importance, whether or not they drink addi- 
tionally of his blood from the chalice ; and it may be 
considered as a matter of mere discipline their doing 
or not doing so : but, to those who do not hold that 
doctrine, the receiving of the sacrament of the wine 
becomes essential to the due observance of the rite 
commanded — it becomes, not a business of human 



106 

arrangement according to changes of times and circum- 
stances, but a duty of implicit and uncalculating obe- 
dience to positive ordinance — to a command solemnly 
delivered thus to us in his last moments, by our dying 
Lord — " And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and 
" gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it, for 
" this is my blood of the New Testament, which is 
" shed for many for the remission of sins ;" Mat. xxvi. 
27, 28. It certainly does appear to me most 
strange, that, while a strictly literal understanding of 
the text " This is my body'' is insisted on, against the 
general analogy of Scripture, the obligation of the 
very next sentence is done away, by a process totally 
at variance with literal construction ; and this for the 
purpose of inducing positive disobedience ; and still 
further, in direct contradiction to all that the Bible 
inculcates, to wit — that " obedience is better than 
" sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." 

I have in some other instances stated the period 
at which the rust of modern Romanism began, out 
of Ireland, to encrust the fair mirror in which we 
now see reflected, although as in a glass darkly, the 
pure and simple image of our only Redeemer, and 
mediator Christ Jesus ; that which is now before us, 
the denial of communion in both kinds, is one 
of very modern invention, as is manifest from 
the words of the canon of the council of Constance 
already quoted. I do not know that it was ever 
pretended to have been grounded on any warrant from 
Scripture ; while, as we have seen, it directly contra- 
dicts its most explicit injunctions. 



107 

I have now, my dear Sir, gone through the four 
pages, in which you have thought fit to represent thus 
the argument of Archbishop Usher — " That rarely 
<; has there been hazarded an assertion so little 
" grounded on fact" — whether justly or not, our 
judges are now enabled to determine. But I have not 
yet done with the subject, or your book. It is of the 
highest importance yet to consider, whence the first 
Irish Christians derived their knowledge of divine 
things, and by what they regulated their principles 
and their lives ; it is also of the greatest consequence 
to ascertain, what were the great leading doctrines of 
salvation which they preached. The points of which 
we have been treating are details — I have only dwelt 
on them, because you first noticed them ; and, there- 
fore, I shall not now detain you, by entering into 
an inquiry respecting extreme unction, indulgences, 
the chrism in baptism, and many other peculiarities 
of the Roman Catholic church, which you have 
passed over — this is not the place for them, as my 
letter is confined solely to the subjects which you have 
primarily mentioned. But the two grand points now 
alluded to — the great standard of faith, and the great 
doctrine of justification — are not only the roots from 
which the others spring, and therefore considerations 
necessarily arising out of a comment on your history ; 
but essentially bound up with the determination 
of the principal and comprehensive question on which 
we are at issue. 

It is certainly the fact, that the great standard of faith 
referred to by the early Irish Christians was the Bible 



108 

itself* " It is written," appears to have been 
most especially the rule of St. Patrick in his con- 
fession, and even in the genuine canons of his 
synods ; and a similar deference to the sole word of 
God seems to have been the characteristic of these 
early days, and to mark well the period when false 
doctrine commenced to creep in, and the people 
began " therefore to err, not knowing the Scriptures 
" or the power of God ;" and to follow those blind 
leaders who, " teaching doctrines and commandments 
" of men," made " void the word of God by their 
" tradition." — (Mark vii. 7, and 13, Rhemish version.) 
St. Patrick, as we are informed by Jocelin, his prin- 
cipal biographer, (c. xii.) exercised himself much in 
reading the Scriptures — "ab ipso prima? vopubertatis" — 
" from the very earliest age of puberty ;" and Secun- 
dums, his nephew, to whose poem in his praise you 
have already introduced us, thus says of him — 

" Sacrum invenit thesaurum sacro in volumine." 

" He found the sacred treasure in the Holy Volume ;" 
and describes him as — 

" Verus cultor, et insignia, agri Evangelici ; 
" Cujus semina videntur Christi Evangelia.*' 

" a true and eminent cultivator of the evangelical 
" field, whose seeds appear to have been the gospels 
" of Christ." The consequences of such a disci- 
pline were, the pouring forth among the people of the 
precepts of that gospel, which the saint himself 
mentions to be the proper mode of bringing them 
under the law to Christ ; (De abus. ssec. — See his 



109 



Opusc, p. 92,) and the performing of miracles, not 
indeed in the way attributed to him in the monstrous 
legends of latter days, but by the many conversions, 
which, as purer tradition informs us, he was the 
instrument in the Lord's hands of accomplishing in 
the land. Such indeed is the character which your 
own better taste and judgment attributes to him, 
especially where you so graphically describe him (p. 
219,) in his interesting interview with the daughters 
of the Leinster King. 

The work of St. Patrick just alluded to contains a 
paragraph on the modesty (pudicitia) of women, 
(p. 77,) in which he expresses himself tnus — "Bonis 
" semper moribus delectatur et consentit, et assiduis 
" scripturarum meditationibus, et eloquiis, animam 
" vegetat." — " It always delights in and consents 
" w T ith good morals, and refreshes the soul by conti- 
" nual meditations and discourses," or conversations, 
" on the Scriptures.' ' Thus he exhorts even females ; 
and I must again especially observe that, neither here 
nor elsewhere in his works, does he refer to any other 
fountain of moral conduct. 

Of St. Columbkille we are thus informed by his 
biographer Adamnanus, (lib. 1, c. 1,) that he was 
one — " Qui etiam a puero deditus Christiano tyro- 
" cinio et sapientiee studiis." — " Who even from his 
" boyhood was given to a Christian education and 
" the studies of wisdom." And he is said to have con- 
founded gainsayers, and taught his disciples to sup- 
port their doctrines, by putting forward the testimo- 



110 

nies of the Sacred Scriptures— " prolatis Saci\e Scrip- 
" turae testimoniis." No wonder then that a church 
built upon two such pillars as these should be, for a 
period at least, " a shining light ;" nor was it unfitly 
compared by the ancient annalists to the celestial 
luminaries. — See Revel, c. 1. 

That in these early days the Scriptures were 
common in the vulgar tongue, is positively asserted 
by St. Chrysostom, who must have written the 
following words before the year 407, at which time 
he died — " Although thou shouldest go to the 
" ocean, and those British isles," &c. " thou shouldest 
" hear all men every where discoursing matters out 
" of the Scriptures, with another voice, indeed, but 
" not with another faith," (De util. Scrip. Ed. Sav. 
V. viii. p. Ill,) and it is further evidenced by 
this still more decisive assertion of Bede, (lib. i. 
c. 1,) — " This island," (Britain,) " at this present, 
" with five sundry languages, to the number of the 
" five books of Moses, doth study and set forth 
" the knowledge of the perfect truth — that is, with 
" the language of the English, the Britons, the 
" Scots" (or Irish,) "the Picts, and the Latins, which 
" by the study of the Scriptures is made common 
" to all the rest." 

It will be interesting to see a few more instances 
of the habits, in this respect, of our early saints. 

The account given us of St. Columbanus, by his 
biographer Ionas, is very similar to what we are told 
of St. Patrick — " So within his breast were laid up 



Ill 

" the treasures of the Holy Scriptures, that, within 
" the compass of his youthful years," (intra adoles- 
centise aetatem,) " he composed an elegant exposition 
u of the whole book of Psalms;" and this saint 
wrote thus to Hunualdus, (Syl. p. 11,) " Sint tibi 
" divitiae divinae dogmata legis.' — " Let the divine 
" precepts of the law be your treasure." St. 
Kilian, also, and St. Fursa, are said to have 
applied themselves, " from the time of their very 
"childhood" to the study of the Scriptures. (Bede, 
lib. iii. 19.) 

But Bede is still further our authority for several 
more interesting facts ; he tells us (lib. iv. c. 23, 
Stapleton's translation,) of St. Hilda, Abbess of 
Lindisfarne, that [" such religious men as lived under 
" government, she made them to bestow their time in 
" the reading of the Scriptures ;" and again he shews 
us, in the example of Agilbert, a native even of 
France, that so great was the character of Ireland 
as a place where " the studying the Scriptures" was 
especially cultivated, that this stranger went thither, 
and remained there some time, for that sole purpose — 
c< tunc legendarum gratia scripturarum in Hibernia, 
" non parvo tempore demoratus." This fact you 
have referred to in your note to p. 282. He likewise 
informs us, that British princes were sent hither for 
the same reason, and that one named Altfrid became 
thus most learned in the Scriptures — " Successit 
" Egfrido in regnum" Northumbrian " Altfrid, vir in 
" Scripturis doctissimus," Bed. iv. 26, and in his 



112 

poem of the Life of St. Cuthbert, he writes of this 
monarch thus — 

*• Scottorum qui tunc versatus incola terris, 
" Coelestem intento spirabat corde sophiam ; 
u Nam patriae fines et dulcia liquerat arva, 
M Sedulus ut Domini mysteria discerit exul." 

Again he relates of St. Aidan, the principal of St. 
Columbkille's successors, that " all such as went with 
" him, whether clergy or laity, were obliged to exer- 
" cise themselves either in reading the Scriptures, or in 
" the learning of the Psalms ;" and also, that " the 
" people flocked anxiously on the Lord's day, to St. 
" Aidan, and St. Finan, and St. Colman, to the 
" churches and monasteries, not for the feeding of 
" their bodies, but for the hearing of the word of 
" God." (Ecc. Hist. lib. iii. c. 5 and 26.) 

This, therefore, is the secret why this island was 
called " Sanctorum patria," the country of saints ; 
why so many notices occur, as Camden observes, in 
ancient writers, of persons being sent hither for 
education — " araandatus est ad disciplinam in 
" Hibernia, (p. 52, of your history,) and that Erin is 
thus mentioned in the ancient rude poetry of the day, 
" Ivit ad Hibernos sophia mirabile claros." Ionas, a 
Roman Catholic writer, the biographer of Colum- 
banus, J>ears testimony at once to the independence 
of her inhabitants of all authority, and to their 
enjoyment of the great source of Christian doctrine, 
and also the influence of that doctrine upon their faith 
where he says, "Gens, quanquam absque reliquarum 



113 

" gentium legibus, tamen in Christian! vigore dog- 
" mate florens, omnium vicinarum gentium fide prae- 
" pollens." — " A nation which, although without 
" the laws of other nations, yet so flourishing in the 
" vigour of Christian doctrine, that it exceeds the 
" faith of all the neighbouring nations." (Vit. Colum. 
c. 1.) While Bede, another steadfast adherent to 
the Roman see, testifies of them thus, (lib. iii. 4,) 
that " they observed only those works of piety and 
M chastity which they could learn in the prophetical, 
;< evangelical, and apostolical ivritings."* This also 
is the secret why, considering her foreign aspect, 
ancient Erin w r as the island of missions ; from which 
first emanated those crowds of sainted teachers, from 
whom " savage clans and roving barbarians received 
" the benefits of knowledge, and the blessings of 
" religion '' — and the greater part of Britain her first 
hearing of the blessed truths of the Gospel. \ 

* This venerable historian seems to think that he could not 
better recommend a holy person, than by saying, as he does 
of St. Adamnanus, that " he was a good man, and wise, and most 
11 nobly" (noblissime) " instructed in the knowledge of the 
14 Scriptures ;" and' it is remarkable that while he manifestly 
condemns the independence of the Irish Christians, he bears 
this candid and generous testimony to their character, where 
speaking of St. Aidan, he says, that "although he could not 
%i keep Easter contrary to the manner of them that sent him, 
" yet he was careful diligently to perform the works of faith, 
" and godliness, and love, according to the manner used by 
" all holy men. Wherefore he was justly beloved of all, even 
" those who differed from him with respect to Easter; and he 
" was not only held in reverence by those of meaner rank, but 
" also by the bishops themselves, Honorius of Canterbury, 
" and Felix of the East Angles." 

f It is pleasing to find a foreigner, M. Rapin, doinn- justice 
to this fair claim of Ireland, which will be probably ridiculed 

I 



114 

It is interesting to reflect on the primitive and 
scriptural mode by which these two great apostles of 
Ireland, St. Patrick and St. Columbkille, prepared 
themselves for, and accomplished, their great task. 
It had been early thus enjoined by Jehovah to the 
Jews — " These words which I command thee this 
" day, shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach 
" them diligently to the children." — (Deut. vi. 6, 7,) 
David had declared in the Psalms, (I shall give the 
passage in the Roman Catholic Latin, and Rhemish 
versions,) " Testimonium Domini fidele, sapientiam 
" prsestans parvulis" — " The testimony of the Lord 
" is faithful, giving wisdom to little ones ;" (Ps. xix. 
8,) and St. Paul had exhorted Timothy, to continue 
in the things which he had learned, knowing of 
whom he had learned them, to wit, his mother and 
grandmother — " and because from thy infancy thou 
" hast known the Holy Scriptures." Such was the 
first truly Catholic doctrine ; and according to it 
these holy men were themselves exercised, and disci- 
plined their disciples. It is a matter of modern 
corruption and Satanic innovation, that the Bible has 
been made to be a sealed book to any ; and if the 
doctrine of justification be an article by which we 
may try a standing or a falling church, another test 
may surely be said to exist in the extent of the per- 

by some of her own sons at home. " It is surprisingly 
strange" he says, (Hist, of Eng. Fol. Lond. 1732, p. 80,) 
<( that the conversion of the English should be attributed to 
" Austin ; rather than to Aidan, to Finan, to Colman, to Cedd, 
" to Dimna, and the other Scottish" (or Irish) " monks, who 
" undoubtedly laboured much more abundantly than he." 



115 

mission given for the perusal of the Scriptures, in 
which that doctrine is revealed. In the primitive 
Christian Church of Ireland the Bible was read, as 
we have seen, by all, in their vulgar tongue ; the 
laity, the common people, the women, the very 
children, were encouraged, nay ordained, to engage 
in this hallowed occupation ; and therefore was her 
church orthodox and flourishing at home, and press- 
ing to spread its blessings abroad. But when the 
light was extinguished by the Danes, and the 
churches and colleges destroyed, and the Bible itself 
immured in a foreign language, darkness covered the 
land, and gross darkness the people; until that word, 
which is " the Religion of Protestants," and which at 
the first commanded the light to shine out of dark- 
ness, broke the clouds, and gave the promise of a 
better day — and oh ! never may the compromising spirit 
of expediency prevail to shade its effulgence with an 
attenuating veil. The spiritual eyes of faith can well 
bear the full brilliancy of the glory of God revealed 
in Jesus Christ, while mounting " up with wings, as 
" eagles ;" (Is. x. 31,) nor is it at all requisite to reduce 
that glory to the twilight ray or reflected beam, by 
which celestial objects must be accommodated to 
mere corporeal vision. 

I shall now present a very short summary of the 
doctrines of the early Christians of Ireland, connected 
solely with that fundamental and most essential one — 
the mode of a sinner's justification before God. These 
can only be collected from various parts of the re- 
mains of these teachers, as I am not aware that there 



116 

is existing any regular discourse of any of them on 
the subject. According to my plan, I shall confine 
myself to the opinions of those whom you have 
stamped in your history with the impress of authority ; 
although, by doing so, I am obliged to forego the 
very valuable testimony of Claudius, the most diffuse 
and explicit Irish writer upon the subject. 

You consider the Epistle of St. Patrick to Coroticus, 
and his confession to be genuine, (p. 223) ; and he writes 
in them thus — " I was," he says, " as a stone which 
" lies in the deep mire ; and he who is mighty came, 
" and took me out of it in his mercy; and he indeed 
" raised me up, and placed me on the top of the wall" — 
(opusc. p. 5,) " but what shall I say, or what shall I 
" promise unto my Lord ? because I see nothing that 
" he has not bestowed on me." — (p. 21 .) And again — 
" / am greatly A debtor to God, who has vouch- 
" safed to me so much grace, that so many people 
" should be born again unto God, through me" — 
(opusc. 14.) once more — " Behold, I now commend 
" my soul to my most faithful God, whose ambas- 
" sador I am, in my great un worthiness" — " in ignobili- 
" tate mea ;" (p. 21 and 28.) " Non sum dignus Deo 
" neque hominibus subvenire" — " I am unworthy to 
" assist either God or man." Add to this, that all the 
genuine works of St. Patrick are but comments on 
the following text, which he thus himself most forcibly 
proposes — " These are not my words, but those of 
" God, and the apostles, and the prophets, that have 
" never lied. He who believeth shall be saved ; but 
" he that believeth not shall be damned." (opus. p. 30.) 



117 



I shall now proceed to Sedulius, and shew how 
this doctrine was opened out by the Irish divines, 
even so late as the year 818. " All mankind stood 
" condemned in the apostatical root, (of Adam), with 
" so just and divine a judgment, that even were 
" none of them freed from thence, no man could 
" rightly blame the justice of God ; and such as 
" were freed must have been so freed, that from 
" the many that were not freed but left in their 
" most just condemnation, it might be manifested 
" what the whole lump had deserved. That also 
" the due judgment of God had condemned even 
" those that are justified, unless mercy had relieved 
" them from that which was due ; that every mouth of 
" those who gloried in their merits, might be stopped, 
" and he that glorieth should glory in the Lord." 
(in Rom. ix.) — " God hath so ordered it, that he will 
" be gracious to mankind ; if they do believe that 
" they are to be freed by the blood of Christ" — (in 
Rom. 3,) " and the patriarchs and the prophets were 
" not justified by the works of the law, but by faith'' — 
(in Gal. 2.) And lastly—" This faith when it hath 
" been justified, sticks in the soil of the soul, like a 
" root that hath received a shower ; that, when it hath 
" begun to be cultivated by the law of God, boughs 
" may rise up again on it, which may bear the fruit 
" of works. Therefore the root of righteousness 
" doth not grow out of works, but the fruit of ivorks 
"from the root of righteousness — namely, from that 
" root of righteousness, which God doth accept 
" for righteousness without works" — (in Rom. iv.) 



118 

This will serve as a specimen, and must suffice for 
the present ; whosoever requires more of doctrine in 
this strain, will find it in the 2d chapter of Usher's 
Religion of the ancient Irish ; in the volumes there 
referred to ; and also in the works of the Irish Chris- 
tians who wrote previously to the year 600, whose 
authority you have established by your approbation. 
I shall however, before I proceed to compare with 
these the doctrines of modern Roman Catholics and 
of Protestants, and also the declarations of Scripture, 
quote very shortly two remarkable passages from two 
Popes ; the first of them St. Clement* the 3d bishop of 
Rome, who lived in the first century ; and the second, 
Gaius, or Caius, who died A.D. 296. The former 
says — " We are not justified by ourselves, neither by 
" our own wisdom, or knowledge, or piety, or the 
" works that we have have done in holiness of heart ; 
" but by that faith by which Almighty God hath 
" justified all men from the beginning." Gaius, says 
that " the righteousness of the saints avails nothing 
" to our pardon or justification " \ 

* See his Ep. to the Cor. c. 32, edited by Rev. Mr. Cheval- 
lier. I have quoted St. Clement before, from his 2d epistle 
to the Corinthians; and I have found by Mr. Chevallier's work y 
that there are doubts of the genuineness of this latter. I was 
not aware of this until after the sheet was printed off; but it is 
not a matter of much consequence to the main point of our 
argument — the tenets of the early Irish Christians. 

f" Acceperunt justi, non dederunt, coronas. De fortitudine 
" fidelium exempla nata sunt patientias, non dona justi tise. 
" Singulares quippe in singulis mortes fuerunt, nee alterius 
" quisquam debitum suo fine persolvlt; cum Filius hominis, 
" unus solus Dominus Jesus Christus, qui vere erat agnus 
" immaculatus, extiterit ; in quo omnes crucifixi, omnes mortui, 
" omnes sepulti, omnes etiam sunt suscitati." — Bin. Cone. 
T. 1. p. 220. 



119 

These will fitly lead me, in historical order, to a 
short exhibition of the doctrines of the modern 
Roman Catholic church, on the great points of justi- 
fication by faith, and the merit of works, in which it 
principally differs from those of the more ancient 
one of St. Patrick, and that also of the modern 
reformers. The council of Trent declares, (Trid. 
Sess. 6, can. 11, &c.) — "If any one say that men 
" are justified either by the sole imputed righteous- 
" ness of Christ, or the sole remission of sins, exclu- 
" sire of the grace and charity which should be shed 
" in their hearts by the Holy Spirit, and remain in 
" them ; or likewise that the grace, by ivhich we be 
"justified, is the mere favor of God — Let him 
" be anathema." And again — " If any one shall say, 
" that the good works of a justified man are so the 
" gifts of God, that they are not also the good 
" merits of the justified man himself; or that the 
" justified man himself, by good works which, through 
" the grace of God and the merit of Christ, are done 
" by him, does not truly merit an increase of grace, 
" eternal life, and if he depart in grace, the possession 
" of eternal life, and also an increase of glory — let 
" him be accursed.'— Vid. Can. 9, 11, 24, 30, 32. 

I shall present the account of the immense value 
of these works in the eyes of the Roman Catholic 
church — (and valuable indeed they must be to co-ope- 
rate with the blood of Christ) — from Dens' Theo- 
logy, Vol. vi. p. 417. In answer to a question, what 
is an indulgence ? we are there told, that it is 
the remission of sins — " per applicationem satisfac- 



120 

" tionum quae in thesauro Ecclesiae continentur. ,, 
And, in answer to the next inquiry, respecting this 
treasury of the church, it is said, that " est cumulus 
" bonorum spiritualium permanentiurn in acceptatione 
" divina, et quorum dispositio Ecclesise est concre- 
" dita." The next question brings us directly to 
our point — from whence does the hoard of this, the 
church's treasury, arise ? — " Ex quibus thesaurus ille 
" coalescit ?" — The answer is ; first, from the " super- 
u abundant satisfaction of Christ" — " Deinde ex super- 
" effluentibus Beatse M arise Virginis, et reliquorum 
" sanctorum, satisfactionibus." — " Then from the 
" overflowing satisfactions of the Blessed Virgin 
" Mary, and all the other saints !" This document 
then declares that " Beata Virgo Maria nullum un- 
" quam contraxit pcense debitum " — " that she never 
became liable to penalty ? in other words, had no sin 
that requires a saviour ; and goes on to assert — 
" Sic apostoli, martyres, anachoritae, aliique sancti et 
" sanctse innumerabiles, plus passi sunt quam exige- 
" bant eorum peccata, secundum modura quern Deus 
u servat in poenis exigentibus." — " So the apostles, 
<; martyrs, anchorites, and other innumerable saints, 
" male and female, suffered more than their sins re- 
" quired, according to the mode which God observes in 
" exacting penalties/' — Such is the doctrine of modern 
Romanism ; but whether it be consistent with that 
which the Blessed Virgin says of herself — " My spirit 
H hath rejoiced in God my saviour" — Luke i. 47. 
I shall leave to others to determine ; and content 
myself with exhibiting its more modern practical 



121 

effects, on the religious opinions of even the superior 
classes of Romanists in Ireland, by one striking and 
public instance. There is in the city of Cork a 
monument erected to the memory of a Roman 
Catholic gentleman, on which is inscribed the 
following epitaph — " Sacred to the memory of the 
" benevolent Edward Molloy," &c. " he employed 
" the wealth of this world only to secure the riches 
" of the next ; and, leaving a balance of merit on the 
" book of life, he made heaven debtor to mercy" !! ! 
The date is 1818. 

The articles of the church of England declare a 
doctrine essentially different from all this — and first, 
with reference to the last-mentioned subject, it lays 
down, that " Works of supererogation cannot be 
" taught without arrogancy and impiety ; for by them 
" men do declare, that they do not only render unto 
" God as much as they are bound to do, but that 
" they do more for his sake than of bounden duty is 
" required ; whereas Christ saith plainly — when ye 
" have done all that are commanded to you, say, we 
" are unprofitable servants." — Art. 14. Other doc- 
trines of the same declare thus — " Original sin 
" standeth not in the following of Adam, (as the 
" Pelagians do vainly talk)" — so that we see, whatever 
the very first church in Ireland might according to 
your insinuations have thought of this sect, her present 
Protestants are not Pelagian — " but it is the fault and 
" corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally 
" is engendered of the offspring of Adam ; whereby 
" man is very far gone from original righteousness, 



122 

" and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the 
" flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit ; and, 
" therefore, in every person born into this world, it 
" deserveth God's wrath and damnation" — Art. 9. 
Man " cannot turn and prepare himself by his own 
" natural strength and good works, to faith, and calling 
" upon God." — Art. 10. " We are accounted righteous 
" before God, only for the merit of our Lord and 
" Saviour Jesus Christ, by faith ; and not for our own 
" works or deservings" — (Art. 11.) — and " Albeit 
" that good works, which are the fruits of faith, and 
" follow after justification, cannot put away our sins, 
" and endure the severity of God's judgment ; yet are 
" they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and 
" do spring out necessarily of a true and lively faith ; 
" insomuch that by them a lively faith may be as 
" evidently known, as a tree discerned by the fruit." — 
Art. 12. 

It will be quite sufficient, as no one portion of 
Holy Scripture can contradict another, to present 
here, from St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, (c. ii. 
v. 1 to 10 incl.) a passage, which affords us perhaps 
the best and most condensed parallel to the summary 
of ancient doctrine that is before us— he is addressing 
the Ephesian converts to the Christian faith. " And 
" you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses 
" and sins ; wherein in time past ye walked, according 
" to the course of this world, according to the prince 
" of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh 
" in the children of disobedience : among whom also 
" we all had our conversation in times past in the 



123 

" lusts of our flesh; fulfilling the desires of the flesh 
" and of the mind ; and were by nature the children 
" of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in 
" mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even 
" when we icere dead in sins, hath quickened us 
" together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved); and 
" hath raised us up together, and made us sit together 
" in heavenly places in Christ Jesus ; that, in the ages 
" to come, he might shew the exceeding riches of his 
Ci grace, in his kind ness toward us through Christ 
" Jesus — for by grace are ye saved through faith ; 
" and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 
" not of works, lest any man should boast. For 
" we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, 
" unto good works, which God hath before ordained 
" that we should walk in them." 

From all this it is now sufficiently clear, that in 
the two grand fundamental questions — the great 
standard of doctrine, and the point of doctrine most 
essential to salvation — we have the written word 
first, the opinions of the primitive bishops of Rome 
next, and lastly, the doctrines of the early Irish 
Christians, directly and irreconcilably opposed to 
modern Romanism ; and we have the tenets of the 
reformers, or restorers, or Protestants, or call them 
what you will, perfectly agreeing with the three 
first. We see, therefore, that their religion is no 
novelty, but simply the old sterling and valuable 
coin rubbed clear of its rust, and restored to its original 
brightness ; enabling us to distinguish the counterfeit, 



124 

and thus to render unto God the things that are 
God's. 

There is one very important conclusion indeed, 
which follows quite logically from all that has pre- 
ceded — and it follows from it equally if any one 
of Archbishop Usher's main assertions be found to 
be true — it is this, that the early Irish Christians 
could not have been Romanists. Doctor Murray, 
Roman Catholic archbishop of Dublin, has, in a 
recent controversy, afforded us the major proposition 
of this syllogism in the following terms : — "He who 
" denies one article of faith proposed as such by the 
" Catholic Church, tears up the foundation on which 
" the whole system rests, pronounces it to have fallen 
" from the privilege of inerrability, and to have 
" ceased to be the pillar and ground of truth." — 
And again — " The man who would prefer his own 
" private judgment to the decision of the entire 
" church, and would reject, as untrue, that which it 
" declares to have been revealed, would deny its infal- 
" libility and protest against its doctrines ; or, in 
" other words, he would by the very fact become a 
" Protestant." But the early Irish Christians did, 
as we must admit, at the least deny some one article — 
did prefer their " own private judgment to the de- 
cision of the " entire church." Ergo, they were 
" Protestant" 

I have now, I trust, vindicated Archbishop Usher 
from the charge of groundless assertion, that you have 
advanced against him ; and rescued an important fact 
from the mistake in which you have sought to involve 



125 

it. And I would request of the public, before they 
form their final decision upon the question, to weigh 
well the evidence ; and to remember, that I have 
relied on none but the confessions afforded by your 
History, or the authorities first produced and approved 
by yourself. It is then to be hoped that they will 
come to the conclusion to which I have been compel- 
led to arrive — that, trained in the fields of fancy, you 
afford a striking example, in choosing this novel 
walk of historian, of " that facility in yielding to 
" new impulses and influences, which, in the Irish 
;t character, is found so remarkably combined with a 
" fond adherence to old usages and customs ; and with 
" that sort of retrospective imagination, which for 
" ever yearns after the past " (p. 203) ; and that that 
imagination has rather inclined you to give us, for 
historical fact, a little too much " of what may be 
" called the poesy of real life." And yet, where that 
natural bias of your mind has not been indulged, 
and where your other early prejudices have no oppor- 
tunity of swaying, I would not wish to deprive your 
history of that place of classical record, in which it 
has appeared ; a place of which it is by no means un- 
deserving, were almost all that you have written 
upon the solemn subject of religion blotted from its 
page. Upon that one subject, however — I must repeat 
it, and I think that I am imperatively called upon, by 
your great influence even in politics, and your 
merited popularity as a national poet, to urge it 
forcibly — you are utterly incompetent to inform , 
or to instruct ; and this for the following reasons. 



126 

You are in the first place not dispassionate and 
unprejudiced, when you treat of it. This fact is 
evidenced by your history, and put beyond a doubt 
by your other publications. I had once hoped that 
your mind had soared above your prejudices, from a 
redeeming note that occurs in your memoirs of 
Captain Rock, appended to the following words — 
" Our own priests not suffering us to read the Bible." p. 
187. " The arguments," you there say, "of the Roman 
" Catholic clergy against the use of the Bible as a 
" class-book are well-founded ; but the length to which 
" some of them carry their objections to a free and 
" general perusal of the Scriptures, is inconsistent 
" with the spirit as well of civil, as of religious, 
" liberty." — But these expectations have now vanished, 
and left me to wonder at, and to lament, the fettering 
power of superstitious shackles upon the mind nursed 
in Romanism, so great, that the united forces of 
exalted talents, the best education, and the most 
brilliant society, are not of strength sufficient to 
break them. The evil consequences of this to the 
historian are numerous and great ; in your instance 
it has especially led to the following — it has brought 
you to grossly corrupted sources of information. 
You remind me forcibly of that passage in Jeremiah — 
" My people have committed two evils; they have 
" forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters ; and 
" hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can 
" hold no water." — (ii. 13.) In like manner you 
have most unaccountably and inexcusably neglected, 
you have scarcely if at all noticed, the evidence of 



127 

the Record of Eternal Truth ; which, even allowing 
your traditions and your legends to be admissible 
evidence at all, is doubtless the very best that can be 
adduced on every disputed question of religion ; and 
most manifestly so in one of antiquity of doctrine, 
being as it is the most ancient — the very source and 
origin of all. I was indeed greatly surprised at that 
passage in your history, where in speaking of a con- 
troversy between Dungal and Claudius of Turin, who 
asserted that " saints ought not to be honoured or 
" any reverence paid to images," you allege it to be 
a " point solely to be decided by authority and tra- 
" dition — the constant practice of the church from 
" the very earliest times," p. 296. You do not say, 
even on that obvious occasion, one word of the 
sacred Scriptures, as authority, either in the way of 
precept, or of precedent. And, again, where speaking 
of communion in both kinds, you style it to be " a 
" mere point of discipline," (p. 240,) without meeting 
our allegation, that it is one of positive command ; 
or deigning to notice the testimony of the Word of 
God, even in reference to your own most confined 
view of the practice. These instances will suffice to 
shew how you have forsaken the fountain head, 
your history exhibits it fully ; as it also does the other 
point, that you have " hewn out cisterns, that hold 
" no water." Their character is thus given by your- 
self, (p, 233,) — " It is to be recollected, however, 
" that through all this picture the hands of ecclesiastics 
u have chiefly guided the pencil ; and, though there 
" can be no doubt, that the change effected in the 



128 

" minds and hearts of the people was to a great 
" extent as real, as it is wonderful, it was yet by no 
" means either so deep, or so general, as on the 
" face of these monkish annals it appears.' , You 
have proved to us (p. 257) the falsehood of the 
legend, it can scarcely be called " The Life, of St. 
" Brigid ;" by exhibiting " one of those violations 
" of chronology not (infrequently hazarded for 
" the purpose of bringing extraordinary personages 
" together ;" and which I have already exposed. 
You have admitted (p. 236,) that, " in citing for 
" historical purposes, ' The Lives of Saints/ of 
" whatever age or country, considerable caution 
" ought, of course, to be observed :" yet from the 
muddy waters of these dark annalists, and these 
still darker credulous and false biographers, you 
have drawn your chief supply. That " Life of St. 
" Brigid " you have made, with astonishing indif- 
ference, to be your only ground for u the invoking 
" and praying to saints ;" and from the lives of 
other saints you have cited amply, with much 
more credulity than " caution," in support both of 
history, and of superstitions. You have indeed 
quoted, in condemnation of " writers, who in the 
" pride of fancied wisdom assert a contempt for this 
" species of evidence," the opinions of Gibbon, 
of Montesquieu, and Sir James Mackintosh ; and I 
will say that I go as far as they do in these opinions. 
I do think, with the first of these writers, that " the 
" ancient legendaries deserve some regard ;" with 
Montesquieu, that " on ne laisse pas den tirer de 



129 

" grandes lumieres sur les moeurs, et les usages de 
" ces temps la :" and especially with Sir James, 
that " the vast collections of ' the Lives of the 
*' Saints ' often throw light on public events, and 
11 open glimpses into the habits of men in those 
14 times ; nor are they wanting in sources of interest, 
" though poetical and moral, rather than his- 
" torical." (p. 236, note.) But remember that 
Gibbon adds, as his foundation for his u some 
" regard,'' these words — " as they are obliged to con- 
" nect their fables with the real history of their 
" own times ;" that Montesquieu commences with 
reproaching them that they were u un peu trop 
" credules ;" and that Mackintosh excludes their tes- 
timony from the character of historical, altogether. 
I consider them, indeed, in the light of spiritual 
romances ; and, as we can catch many glimpses of 
the customs of the times they treat of from the 
fables of chivalry, while none but a Don Quixote 
would depend on them for facts ; so these legendary 
biographers may give us some insight into the 
manners of the cloisters, by the very stories which 
it will require the faith of a spiritual Quixote to 
believe. I cannot therefore attribute the incautious 
partiality that you have evinced to them, to any 
thing but the prejudice of your mind. It is exceed- 
ingly to be lamented how much such influence inter- 
feres, to mar and impede every research into the 
very interesting antiquities, whether religious or 
otherwise, of our country ; nor is Dr. Ledwich the* 
only person that is liable to this imputation — he was 

K 



130 

a bold sceptic in Irish antiquities, it is true ; but be 
was often an honest and daring advocate for the 
truth ; and was, I believe, rightly jealous of its evi- 
dences. Let us take the instance of Adamnan's life 
of St. Columbkille ; " a work," as you say, "of which 
" a fastidious Scotch critic," (Piukerton,) has pro- 
nounced, that " it is the most complete piece of such 
" biography that all Europe can boast of, not only at 
" so early a period, but even through the whole 
" middle ages;" (p. 286,) but of which Ledwich 
fearlessly asserts, " it is a heap of credulity and super- 
" stition." (p. 89.) Perhaps indeed Pinkerton meant 
to insinuate the same, in the equivocal sentence that 
you have transcribed from him ; but of this I am 
certain, and the fact can be easily ascertained by 
any one who will take the trouble of looking at the 
work, (he will find it in the florilegium of Messing- 
bam,) that the declaration of Ledwich concerning it 
is quite according to the truth. I differ much in most 
points from this antiquarian, but I trust that he is 
right where, laying aside that character, he appears in 
his more appropriate one of a Protestant clergyman, 
and declares, that it is not possible " that the Roman 
" Catholics of Ireland will be longer amused with 
u fictitious legends, or pay their adoration to ideal 
" personages. The night of ignorance and supersti- 
" tion is passed, and with it the rustic and undis- 
< { cerning piety of dark ages. A scriptural, rational, 
" and manly religion, is alone calculated for their 
" present improvements in science and manners." 
I feel it necessary, as the merit of St. Adamnan's work 



131 

is so magnified by you, to bring forward something 
from it that will justify my opinion of it; and I shall 
do so the more readily, because that I can with much 
propriety say, (i ex uno disce omnes ;" for if this, the 
" most complete piece," be thus rilled with credulity 
and superstition, the banes of true history, how must 
they abound in those which are less complete. From 
the second book — of miracles — to which it is entirely 
confined, I shall present the headings of a very few 
chapters as specimens — " C. i. Quomodo S. Columba 
" aquam in vinum convertit, et arborem pomorum ex 
M amara reddit dulceirT — " c. ii. Quomodo seges, in 
" Junio seminata, in principio Augusti metitur." — 
Not to fatigue the reader I shall select but two more — 
u c. xii. Quomodo S. Columba belluce marinae im- 
" perat, et puerum mortuum suscitat ;" and " c. xiv. 
U Quomodo S. Columba contra tempestatem, a Magis 
" excitataniy secure navigat." It is to be observed 
that all the headings in this book are similar, and 
scarcely any thing but such fables occur in the work.* 



* I know that it will be thought by some, that the working 
of miracles did not cease with the apostolic age, but that the 
power was vouchsafed to the first preachers of the Gospel 
among the heathen ; and such a privilege the Abbe Mc Geo- 
ghegan claims, as we have seen, for St. Patrick ; and such also, 
by a parity of reason, may be said to have belonged to St. Co- 
lumbkille, as the apostle of the Picts. But it might be expected 
that, if the sainted missionary was possessed of any miraculous 
gift, as an apostle, it should have been in the first instance, 
and according to scriptural analogy, of the gift of tongues ; and 
yet we are expressly told the contrary by Adamnan him- 
self. I quote from a note that is appended to your 245th 
page, where he informs us — that the holy man preached 
to the Picts, through an interpreter. 



132 



I must here repeat the fact, although I am not 
willing to attribute its occurrence to a prejudice in your 
mind against him and his doctrines, of the omission of 
Claudius from your account of eminent writers : he was 
among the most eminent, and was supposed to have 
been one of the founders of the University of Paris ; 
he flourished about the same time as Claudius of Turin, 
that is, A.D. 815. Archbishop Usher has quoted 
very amply from his works ; and they afforded him 
the most decided evidence of the purity of the 
doctrine of the Irish church, in the days in which he 
flourished. This should have entitled him to notice, 
and his arguments to a candid hearing ; yet, strange 
to say, his name occurs no where in your work : and 
your silence respecting him has deprived our cause, 
as it is now advocated by me upon the principle of 
resting on the evidence only of such witnesses as you 
have produced or approved, of a testimony the most 
unequivocal and unexceptionable, to the difference 
between the doctrine of modern Romanists and the 
early Irish divines, even so late as the year 815. 
In fine, I must recapitulate by declaring my decided 
opinion, that, because of your predilection in favour 
of Romanism, and the too great development and acti- 
vity of your organ of ideality, you are incapacitated 
from being the unprejudiced and dispassionate historian 
of the Religion of the ancient Irish. 

But you are further unfitted for that office by 
your indifference on the subject — although, as to 
the most material of all, being connected with the 
eternal happiness of mankind, you should have given 



133 

it ample space and full consideration in your work ; 
especially as it influences almost every concern in 
Ireland, and greatly occupies the minds of thousands 
of its inhabitants. Yet you have thought fit to dismiss 
it in a jejune and apparently supercilious manner; and 
have turned quite round on your heel from " the ad- 
mirable Usher" — not because you despised his learning, 
for this you are compelled to admit — what reason 
then had you for it, and for your slight notice of the 
entire question in less than four pages, but your 
apparent indifference towards it ? This feeling, or 
want of feeling rather, you have also manifested in 
your vague and careless mode of reference to your 
authorities, of which I have so often complained. 
In fine, had you thought the subject to have been at 
ail deserving of your notice, as it really is, you could 
not have discussed its doctrines so lightly as you 
have done. 

Another circumstance incapacitates you from being 
the historian of matter so important, your utter un- 
acquaintance with the native language, and the 
original documents of Ireland. It would, I feel, be 
unreasonable to require a great knowledge of the first ; 
but at least a smattering of it is surely necessary, if it 
were only sufficient to enable the historian, in some 
degree, to check the information which he often re- 
ceives through suspicious channels ; and to save his 
work from such a jumble* of letters as you have 

* In the note to p. 53 the proper sentence, " do rinnedur san 
" fos ar an mogh gceadna," is presented thus, " dor innedur — 
" san fos aran moghgceadna. " 



134 

presented us with, when you have ventured to quote 
the Irish language in your book — a little less, however, 
of the preceding disqualification, indifference, would 
have enabled you to have avoided this. But, passing 
by this unfashionable requisite, in which ignorance 
may be venial ; it is by no means so in the case of 
original documents, written in the Latin tongue, with 
the very existence of which you are utterly unac- 
quainted ; I shall give one remarkable example. In 
p. 252 you assert, that " In the Annals of the Four 
" Masters, for the year 1006, we find mention of a 
" splendid copy of the four Gospels, said to have been 
" written by St. Columba's own hand, and preserved 
" at Kells, in a cover richly ornamented with gold. 
" In the time of Usher this precious MS. was still 
" numbered among the treasures of Kells." Adding 
in a note — " This Kells MS. is supposed to have 
" been the same now preserved in the Library of 
" T. C. Dublin, on the margin of which are the 
" following words, written by O'Flaherty in the year 
" 1677 : ' Liber autem hie scrip tus est manu ipsius 
" B. Columbse.' " What a strange confusion have 
we here given as information to the public, which had 
been entirely avoided by a very little deeper research ; 
and by what one would have reasonably expected 
from the historian of Ireland — a visit to the great 
repository of our University. You would by these 
means have discovered, that this noble relic, most 
justly styled u totius Europae facile principem," was in 
Usher's time, not in Kells, but in his own possession ; 
that it passed from his hands into those ultimately of 



135 

Dublin College ; that not it, but the Book of Durrow, 
is that which is inscribed as you have mentioned by 
O'Flaherty ; and that the Book of Kells stands, and has 
stood for much more than a century, in its place in 
the depository of MSS. in the Library of that college ; 
and has been for perhaps eighty years entered most 
legibly into the catalogue* of these MSS. which has 
always lain quite accessible upon the table. Now, 
there is no excuse whatever for your neglect in not 
looking farther into this matter than you have done ; 
the hint that was given you, and which is mentioned in 
your note, you should have followed up ; you are 
sufficiently alive to the great value of the document 
itself, and how it was appreciated ; you should, 
therefore, have searched for and examined it, at least 
before you ventured upon that page of error on the 

* This catalogue has been enlarged, or rather has been em- 
bodied in one of this most extensive and interesting collection 
which I was engaged to form, and which is now deposited in 
the MS. room of the library. The Book of Kells is in the 
press A. 1. 5, the Book of Durrow in A. 4. 5, where they have 
both lain for upwards of a century. While compiling this 
catalogue I have sat with Dr. O'Connor in the Library; I 
have frequently conversed, and have since corresponded with 
him, on Irish subjects ; and I never suspected the extraordinary 
fact, that he was entirely ignorant of the existence of the Book 
of Kells, although it was displayed in the same press with that of 
Durrow, of which he has given good facsimiles in his Rer. Hib. 
Scrip, and of which, as well as of the Book of Kells, he has 
written so much. I think it no excuse to you, that you had 
such a leader in your ignorance, for it is manifest that you 
made no research whatever ; and since the Doctor wrote, and 
before you commenced your history, the Book of Kells has 
been put forward to notice in a new binding, and with an 
inscription, which makes it impossible that it should escape 
unnoticed now. 



136 

subject of our ancient books, your 309th. You should 
indeed not only have known of these books, and seen 
them, but have collated, or caused to be collated, some 
of their peculiar versions ; exhibiting as they do 
variances from St. Jerome's Latin translation, although 
written in that language themselves, and thus affording 
a collateral proof of the independent character of the 
early Irish church ; and not, when you are so very 
vulnerable on this head yourself, have put forward 
the " zealous and amiable scholar," as you style him — 
Dr. O'Conor — as one who " on most points connected 
" with that theme," his country's antiquities, " adopts 
" as proved what has only been boldly asserted ;" so as 
to " render him, with all his real candour and learning, 
«' not always a trustworthy witness." You should at 
least have taken some more fortunate opportunity* 
than this for making the observation ; from the injury 
of which I am the more anxious to rescuef the memory 

* I lie qui deridet, caudam trahit. 

f You take much pains in that passage to sink the authority 
of O'Conor, by bearing down upon him with the weight of that 
of Mr. Astle ; but, however, the fact is, that they are giving 
opinions which are perfectly reconcileable with each other. The 
MS. of the four Gospels to which " Dr. O'Conor triumphantly 
" refers," is written in the Latin language ; and the assertion of 
Mr. Astle is, " that the oldest Irish MS." or MS. in the Irish 
tongue, " which has been discovered, is the Psalter of Cashel, 
" written in the tenth century." 

It must here be observed, that Mr. Astle is not authority on 
this subject — besides that he did not understand Irish, he writes 
from the accounts of others, citing only Ware. He does not seem 
even to have seen the Irish MS. of which he speaks ; but had he, 
for example, examined the copies of Brehon laws deposited in 
the Library of T.C.D. he must have formed a different judg- 
ment. Had he also seen the Books of Kells and Durrow, he 



137 

of this most learned and honest and lahorious anti- 
quarian, because that I know that, on account of his 
faithfulness in his accounts given, in his letters 
of Columbanus, of the real history of the ancient 
Irish church, he was prevented from officiating 
in Dublin, as a priest of the Roman Catholic* com- 
munion ; and although he never quitted it, was every 
where aspersed by his brethren, and is in no very good 
odour with any Romanist. As a specimen also of 
what you should not have neglected, in the seeking 
for and examining our ancient books, I shall mention 
our famed book of Armagh ; which is accessible, and 
which we have often had occasion to notice ; you 
should, either of yourself or through others, have 
become better acquainted with it, containing as it 
does a remarkable life of St. Patrick, and various 
readings of the New Testament. Finally, in this and 
other such instances of neglect, you have failed in 
your duty as an historian. 

But, still more than the circumstances which I 
have already mentioned, you are precluded from being 
the proper historian of the religion of Ireland, by your 
not having yourself very clear ideas upon that inte- 

must also have given an opinion of their greater antiquity. Dr. 
O'Conor was more competent than he to determine upon 
books that were merely Irish ; and I feel myself justified, upon 
his testimony and that of other skilful judges, to assert, that 
with respect to them Mr. Astle was mistaken in his judgment. 
* See his correspondence with Dr. Troy, upon the subject, 
in the letters of Columbanus, No. VII. What this really 
liberal Romanist says of Archbishop Usher, and his arguments, 
in No. III. p. 50, of these letters, demonstrates at once his 
candour and good sense. 



138 

resting subject. Without entering into a controversial 
consideration of certain passages in other parts of your 
history; or dwelling again upon your naming that 
doctrine a heresy, which " maintained, that saints 
" ought not to be honoured, nor any reverence paid to 
" images ;" or referring to errors which a Roman 
Catholic will hold to be not such ; I must repeat and 
urge the instance of your argument in "page 305, re- 
specting the real presence. You there represent the 
pure and spiritual doctrine of the Protestant church, 
as being your own, and claim it for the ancient Irish 
also ; while it is clear from the entire tenor of your 
argument, that you nevertheless suppose it not to be 
the Protestant, but the modern Roman Catholic tenet 
on that subject. 

With your manner of treating other subjects I have 
no business here — save only to give deserved credit to 
your industry and to your talents ; and to make 
one short and necessary comment respecting your 
politics as a writer, upon a point inseparable from the 
subject before us. I must introduce it by observing, 
that I do not condemn your nationality, but would 
only wish that you had exhibited it with a more truly 
national feeling ; and not, when whatever of severity 
or impolicy had formerly marked the English domi- 
nancy had vanished away, have agitated the settling 
minds of the people, roused with your martial music 
the slumbering rancour of the Irish against the 
Saxon name, and fanned the dying embers of national 
and religious jealousy to a devastating flame. But you 
have yet an opportunity, when you are entering upon 



139 

the later centuries of your history, to take off a portion 
of the combustible material from the raging fire ; by 
assuring the poor Irishman of the fact — that it is not 
to the Saxon invasion that he is to attribute the estab- 
lishment of Protestantism in this island; that with the 
British conquest first came a full acquiescence in a 
subjection to the see of Rome ; and that, although you 
will still perhaps continue to deny that the Roman 
Catholic was an innovation on the primitive church 
in Ireland, it was not until about the period of Henry 
the Second's invasion, that the Pope sent over his 
palls, and his legates, or assumed any thing like the 
authority which he has since laid claim to. At this 
period, Adrian IV. and Alexander III. committed, by 
bulls, this " barbarous nation," as they pleased to 
call it, into the King's hands ; with a full commission 
to subdue it — to spill the blood of its inhabitants, 
under the pretence of spreading the gospel of peace ; 
and on the condition of transmitting to Rome the tax 
of Peter's pence, for the promoting of His religion, 
whose kingdom is not of this world. Tell them the 
following fact ; and if you tell it in poesy, I am sure 
it will be much better than the chronicler's, that — 

The King Henry then conquered all Ireland, 

By Papall dome — 

For errour which agayn the spiritualtee 

They held full long — (Hardyng's Chron. c. 132,) 

and, disuniting Protestantism from the hated name of 
Saxon, let simple truth have fair play. 

With the department of theology, however, you 
should not interfere, until you have given your mind 



140 

to a calm consideration of that most solemn subject. 
Oh that your muse, with whose national eloquence 
I have often sympathised, were yet inspired to 
breathe forth the praises of Jehovah ! Then, in- 
deed, instead of regretting that you made Christianity 
in Ireland your subject, I should watch, more 
anxiously than I era* did for a promised number of 
your melodies, to hail some new effusion of your 
eminently poeti<rcalent. Oh, my dear sir, reflect — do 
but reflect — how responsible you are for the use of 
that important — that influential gift. How rapidly is 
the time — the moment, for its enjoyment here, passing — 
fleeting away ! How very soon we shall both of us 
stand before the judgment seat of our Redeemer— now 
inviting in mercy, but then retributing injustice — and 
give an account of the improvement or abuse of the 
talents committed to our charge. With real desire 
that you as well as I may be instructed in all truth, 
and that we may be enabled to abide in it unto life 
eternal — 

I am your's, faithfully, 

HENRY J. MONCK MASON. 



Dublin, Printed by J. S, Folds, 5, Bachelor's- Walk. 



POSTSCRIPT. 



Since this letter was completed, I have been in- 
duced to make some inquiry respecting one part of it, 
which, from my deficiency of information at the 
time, I thought proper to confine to the place of a 
mere note, but which I have now found not only a 
fit subject for a place in the letter itself, but deserv- 
ing of the most particular attention. It exhibits as 
striking an instance of dishonest misquotation as I have 
ever met with — but in using these terms, I do not 
mean to apply the degrading epithet to your motives, 
for I know that you took the passage from O'Connor, 
without putting yourself to further trouble ; nor do I 
apply them to that learned and honest man, who I 
am willing to believe took it, also rather lazily, from 
some previous writer : but I lay the charge boldly at 
the door of some previous advocate of your cause, 
I stated in the note to p. 63, that you have mis- 
quoted the words of Tertullian, who says, " Obla- 
tiones pro defunctis pro natalitiis annua die faci- 
mus," as if he had merely said, " Oblationes pro de- 
functis annua die facimus." The first sentence 
signifies, " We make oblations for the deceased for 
their birth-days annually;" the second, " We make 
oblations for the deceased annually." I did observe 
the term "defunctis" instead of "mortuis;" and suspect 
that of "pro natalitiis" to be highly material, and I have 

L 



142 



since found that it is indeed so ; as it gives an entire 
change to the custom referred to, in all its character 
and circumstances ; and alludes to one of the most 
beautiful parts of the history of primitive persecution 
and martyrdom. In the Rev. Mr. Chevallier's 
Epistles of Clement, &c. just published, (p. 164, 
note,) you will find the whole matter opened 
out. — The following is an extract — " These anni- 
versaries of the days on which the martyrs suffered, 
were called their birth-days, on which they were 
freed from trials of mortality, and born as it 
were into the joys and happiness of heaven — Thus 
Tertullian de Coron. Militis, c. 3, says — 'Oblationes 
pro defunctis pro natalitiis annua die facimus" — 
(the very sentence you have relied on.) He then 
proceeds to give some instances of allusions to this 
custom, made by St. Cyprian, and adds the following : 
" After Cyprian himself had suffered for the faith, 
we find Peter Chrysologus, in his Sermon on the 
Martyrdom of Cyprian, using the like expressions : 
* Natalem sanctorum cum audistis, fratres, nolite 
putare ilium dici quo nascuntur in terram de came ; 
sed de terra in ccelum, de labore ad requiem, de ten- 
tationibus ad quietem, de cruciatibus ad delicias — non 
fluxas, sed fortes et stabiles et asternas — de mundanis 
risibus ad coronam et gloriam — Tales natales dies 
martyrum celebrantur,'' — " Do not think the birth-day 
of saints to be one to the earth in the flesh ; but from 
earth into heaven, from labour to repose, from temp- 
tations to rest, from tortures to delights— not fleeting, 
but strong, steady, and eternal— from the scorn of 



U3 



the world to the crown and to glory." " The 
manner," he proceeds, " of celehrating the* memories 
of the martyrs and confessors in the primitive Church 
was this — On the anniversary day the people assembled, 
sometimes at the tombs where the martyrs had been 
buried. They then publicly praised God for those 
who had glorified him by their sufferings and death, 
recited the history of their r jartyrdom, and heard a 
sermon preached in commemoration of their patience 
and Christian virtues. They offered up fervent prayers 
to God, and celebrated the Eucharist in commemo- 
ration of Christ's passion, and gave alms to the poor. 
They kept also a public festival provided by general 
contribution, to which the poorer brethren were 
freely admitted." 

The occasion of this note is a passage in the mar- 
tyrdom of Polycarp, which is highly interesting, and 
which I shall transcribe for you from the Latin of 
Eus. Ecc. Hist. lib. iv. c. 15 — " Concedat Deus 
natalem ejus martyrii diem cum hilaritate et gaudio 
celebrare ; turn in memoriam eorum qui glorioso 
certamini perfuncti sunt, turn ad posteros hujusmodi 
exemplo erudiendos et confirmandos" — " May God 
grant to us to celebrate the birth-day of his martyrdom 
with cheerfulness and joy ; as well in memory of those 
who have accomplished the glorious conflict, as for 
teaching and confirming their followers by such an 
example." Here then we find that this pure hallowed 
primitive oblation was the most spiritual sacrifice of 
thanksgiving possible, offered for men — deceased 
certainly, but — undoubtedly gone to glory, and not 



144 



to purgatorial fire, (Rev. xx. 4, vi, 9, &c.) — Cor one here, 
for instance, who even from the burning of this world's 
fires was miraculously preserved ; and it reminds us 
of that striking and difficult passage of 1 Cor. xv. 
29 — " Why are they baptized for the dead," and its 
context — by exhibiting a most powerful motive to the 
Christian believer in the resurrection, to be faithful 
even unto death. 

I hope, my dear sir, you will take a hint from this 
failure ; and attend, in the next volumes of your history, 
to what experience has taught me to be indispensable — 
I mean to consult your originals, when you quote 
authorities upon any occasion of importance. 

I shall take tMs opportunity of transcribing one 
more passage from the martyrdom of Polycarp, and 
give it in the English of Mr. Chevallier ; it demon- 
strates an early abhorrence of any thing like the 
present honor paid by the Romanists to martyrs. It 
was suggested by the Jews to the governor, to pre- 
vent the Christians from taking the body of Polycarp, 
lest they should begin to worship this Polycarp — " not 
considering," says the writer, " that it is impossible 
for us either ever to forsake Christ, who suffered 
for the salvation of all such as shall be saved 
throughout the whole world, (the righteous for the 
ungodly) ; or to worship any other. For him 
indeed, as being the Son of God, we adore ; but 
for the martyrs we worthily love them, as the disci- 
ples and imitators of our Lord, on account of their 
exceeding great love towards their Master and 
Kin R ." ' 



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